Not the Doctor
by TheSIckestKidtoGlow
Summary: Dr. Harley Quinnzel has just been hired as a Psychiatrist in Arkham Asylum, and is given her very first patient: The Joker (Jared Leto, Suicide Squad universe) Though I don't know what Jared's Joker personality will be like in the upcoming movie, I decided to write down my own sexy, ideal joker as he both tortures and seduces Harley Quinn into craziness! Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

_I'll punish you with pleasure, and pleasure you with pain_

Patient 13 was… something else.

Back in med school, "13" used to be a bad joke nickname for crazy people – the number alone somehow represented a demeaning way to refer to the sick of mind. It wasn't until I manifested my intention of becoming a psychiatrist that it started bearing any real meaning for me though – from that day on, that's how my colleagues would call me.

In the International Classification of Disease code, F13 covered a different range of mental illnesses caused by the prolonged use of sedatives and hypnotics, explaining the number association with the sick of mind. Did that mean patient 13 turned out the way he did due to drug abuse? ...Was his disorder even a part of the F13 medical code? Hard to tell. The previous psychiatrist's notes didn't help me the least, nor did those from the ones before him: they all contradicted each other greatly, some even seemed to have given up altogether. They might as well have written ' _Damaged_ ' on his report and left it at that. ' _Crazy_ ', they should say – paint a big, red "13" and file his papers away, call it a day. Did my interest in cracking this code mean I deserved the nickname after all?

But I didn't resent the bullying. It's not like I couldn't see where they were coming from – I _could_ , especially now, sitting in my office, reading my first patient's folder under a dim lamp over my desk, late at night. I should have been home three hours ago, and yet there I was, trying to make some sense – _any_ sense out of that peculiar case. I wondered if the choice was some sort of heartwarming welcome gift. People in Arkham Asylum were as cold and negligent as they come, and yet they seemed to have taken their time handpicking my first patient. All my specialization colleagues were being handed suicide victims and broken-hearted fifteen-year-olds in state hospitals across Gotham; rookies such as I were rarely ever trusted with the real 'fat of the land' when it came to the complexity of human psyche, and yet here I was, staring down the file of a patternless multiple-homicide convict no one could throw into jail, yet no one could diagnose either. But I wasn't complaining – hell, if there wasn't a little excited swirl agitating my stomach, I wouldn't be doing overtime in my very first day.

Colleagues-wise, the little conversation I took part in in the cafeteria this morning was pretty much like they were in college: "Are you crazy?", "How can a beautiful, fragile girl like you choose psychiatry?" "Do you have a thing for crazy people?" "They're gonna eat you alive!". I shouldn't be surprised at not finding a single sympathetic soul there to befriend, but I thought I'd feel more at home here, surrounded by people who made the same choice as me. Instead of the shy, petite Asian doctor with a brilliant mind and an unsubdued passion for science I fantasized about meeting, every brutish, old and bitter employee in the place seemed ready with a pack of money in their hands to bet on how long the Barbie doll would last between the psychos. To think that not even in an Asylum my profession is respected is disheartening to say the least, but it didn't work to quell my interest for the job. Lucky for me – I sighed – peer socialization wasn't a part of the job requirements.

Despite what their mocking tongues might say, I did not have a "thing" for crazy people – some did, however, fascinate me. The more complicated the case, the more twisted a human's mind, the more I wanted to study it, to listen to their delusions and try to understand where they branched from. Some of them were pure genius, some of them were incredible artists… All being consumed, helplessly overtaken by their own powerful minds – and therein lay my passion for psychiatry: I didn't think they were weak - it wasn't lack of a strong will that rendered them sick. Rather, something in their upbringing or in their very conception happened to loosen the breaks of the imagination, their minds were too overwhelmingly dominant over the body, a tidal wave of perhaps all the mysteries of the grey matter flooding out into awaken conscience. A sickness, indeed – I was sane enough to acknowledge – but a beautiful one to unveil.

"And the sicker, the better, Harleen!" I sighed to myself in solace when my back ached in the poorly lit room, to the soundtrack of distant, constant cries, trying to put my heart at ease as the picture of my patient stared back at me from the folder: Glacial blue eyes, bulged out as he grinned at the camera, baring a set of big, perfectly lined teeth. Lime green hairlocks fell unruly over his pale forehead. The way he smiled – the way he disturbingly gazed at me, fully aware and comfortable with his condition, it seemed like he knew- like he echoed my thoughts, acutely aware of his sickness, but cherishing it... like it empowered him. His mindful, smart eyes looked promising for the progress of my studies.

"Who knows what scientific breakthroughs you'll guide me towards, Mr. Joker..." I mused as I stared back into the lively picture, allowing the sinister aura around his eyes to contaminate me... It seemed if I stared long enough, I'd find the answer right there...

A shriek of the damned filled the air, echoing in the open space and reverberating through the walls. It started me irrationally away from the contemplation and sent my heart racing. When the passion subsided, I held my fingers to my temples, holding a headache that had yet to get used to how noisy that place was! I drank my cup of coffee and took up a book to study the case – tonight, I wasn't returning home!

What was wrong with that place's lightings? I flipped the switch up and down, hoping the lamp would eventually burn brighter… Vain effort: a yellow glow made the letters over the table only barely distinguishable. I guess that was just something else I'd have to get used to: that a mental institution had interrogation rooms designed to make the interns as uncomfortable as a precinct's.

Giving up on trying to fix the environment, I sat down and scribbled an overview of patient 13 that gathered all the essentials I knew of him so far, for a quick screening in case I needed it.

…Though it might not have looked like it, I was nervous.

I pulled my glasses to the top of my head – the lens, in the dark, made my eyeballs hurt – and glanced at the great mirror before me. Being watched from the other side didn't give me any sort of anxiety… On the contrary: _knowing_ I was completely alone and unsupervised did! But just how hard could I screw things up after all those years of med school? Truth be told, I hadn't needed my professor's surveillance for a long time now, I just liked the reassurance his presence provided – a mere symbol, really, and one permanently replaced by the diploma. I was my own master now: Dr. Quinnzel. If I couldn't handle patient 13, there would be no one to hand his case over to.

And speaking of the devil, I heard the heavy metal hinges turning – A guard's firm shove pushed inside my patient, who chuckled as he stumbled forward, nearly losing his balance. I lowered my glasses back again, letting them fall over my nose, pushed down the button on the recorder, scribbled on the time, the date, the feeling his entrance perspired… My fingers were shaking.

He paced around the desk, before me, during those notes – Though I didn't immediately lift my eyes to meet him, I could feel the heaviness of his mocking survey over me as he took in his first impression. Mine was yet to come - I liked to focus on my notes during the first seconds of my introduction to a patient: it helped dissolving the stiffness of formalities; it also usually made them think I was cool, collected, more professional than my few years of experience allowed.

"Blonde… Doctor… Lady…" he spelled slowly, and smiled at the end. "What a pleasure to meet your acquaintance!"

I lifted my eyes at last and met his frame: He was but a few centimeters taller than me. The messy hair in the picture was now neatly combed back, the bright green color slightly more faded than I expected; his blue eyes looked metallic in the shadow of the poorly lit interrogation room, and his smile looked almost unnaturally large! Below that came the uncomfortable part: he wore nothing over his chest, and a dark grey pair of pants covered his legs with the institution's logo. His torso was skinny, but his muscles were toned, pronounced both by his low body fat percentage and by some religious exercising he probably did in his spare time. I took a note on that, too. Massive black, faded tattoos covered his chest and arms; dark circles that were either makeup or sleeplessness surrounded his eyes, his lips were dark red, artificial-looking…

"It's nice to meet you, too!" I sighed in response, crossing my legs and trying to look impartial.

He continued to pace slowly about the table, eyeing me like a wild animal would.

"And to what do I owe the honor of your visit?" His grin widened as his eyes tried to pierce into mine.

"Why don't you have a seat so we can talk?" I suggested, made uncomfortable by his restlessness.

"Oh, my apologies! How rude, it is _you_ who visits my house, newbie doctor, and it is _I_ who has to be offered a chair! Pardon me, I am not always this timid…" And, without taking his piercing wide eyes from me, he pulled a chair, sat himself elegantly, crossing a leg over the other. He smiled eagerly, as if I should compliment him on his performance, or thank him for it. "Perhaps it is not too late to remedy the situation? _Do_ take a seat, doctor Quinn!" He lightly patted his knees.

"How very original, sir! Harassing the female psychiatrist! That has only happened to me a billion times before!" I appealed to his pride, taking him for the type that likes to stand out for his uniqueness "And it's Dr. _Quinnzel_!" I corrected.

"I know, but I like Dr. Quinn Better!" He stretched a more natural, sideways smile now, engaged in the conversation "You know, it makes for a funny play-on-words with your name…"

"Harlequin…" I anticipated, my eyes narrowing at the vivid throwback to a scorching hot day, the sun beaming high, reflected on the sand of the playground, children chanting, skipping in circles around me. "I know – nothing I haven't heard before!" I cleared my throat, pretending to be bored.

"I'm sure you have: it must have been a mean nickname in school! Did the big boys make you cry then, Dr. Harlequin?"

"They certainly tried! That is also not very original on your part: Trying to intimidate the shrink through casually disclosing you have done your research on her beforehand…"

"Research? By no means! I have merely asked my guard friend your name: it's rude enough that we have not been formally introduced, at least one of the parts has to know what they're doing!"

"Part which is clearly not me… as I happen to not know your name… Mr…." I awaited.

"Oh, but I'm sure you have it in a note there somewhere, Miss Quinn!" he looked down on my file.

"I see nothing close to a birth name here!" I played dumb, looking down at my papers.

"Oh, let me get that for you…" he casually announced, getting up in a quick movement and bending forward, leaning against the desk.

I startled and jumped back on my chair, holding tight to it as my heart skipped a beat. That was either another welcoming gift from the staff, or the guards were simply too used to patient 13's invasion of personal space to deem it dangerous, for no one came in to pull him back to his chair! He stretched his slim arm toward me, teasing the small distance separating us… then he placed a tattooed hand over my file and slid it to him. Flashing me a comfortable smile, he sat back in his original position.

I breathed.

"Ah – here it is, doctor! Right under 'delusions of grandeur', 'Paranoia', 'Abused as a child'. It says "The Joker", doesn't it?"

I cleared my throat, swallowed the unprofessional lump growing there, and carried on:

"That is not a name!"

"But what _is_ a name, do tell: Not all of us have had the privilege of eight years of superior education to elucidate so feeble a concept! But I'm sure you know better, doctor."

I nudged my glasses upwards, embarrassed by the lecture.

"I would very much like to know your true identity."

"Well, so would I!" He grinned. "I was told therapy can help with that"

Unpredictably caught up in this careful snare, I couldn't help but smile myself.

Pleased, my patient cleverly observed:

"And now you understand my choice of a name, doctor. As it turns out, it has been given to me much like your mother has given you yours..."

" _Self_ -given or otherwise?" I readied my pen.

"I don't really know. Do _you_ remember when you decided to do as everyone else and call yourself Harleen?"

I stared blankly at him.

"Will you eventually call yourself just 'doctor'?"

"I'm not called that as often as you think."

"But if you were... If working as a doctor was all you did and all you knew..." he teased, peering intensely into me: a way of bullying me out of changing subjects. "...would that become who you are, body and soul?"

"I don't think so."

"Then we're back to square one, doc..." he sighed, leaning back on his chair as if disappointed.

"As we should be!" I took the cue, realizing a dejected patient looked less intimidating than an enthusiastic one "For we're here to talk about _you_ , p-" I caught myself nearly calling him by his assigned number. A correction in the angle my glasses fell towards seemed enough to rectify the error.

"It's Mr. Joker to you."

"Fuck!" I thought, in a rare moment of mental obscenity.

"You seem uncomfortable at the idea of calling me that, doc! Is that how we come to naming people? ...Because we don't like who they really are?"

"I just don't happen to find you that funny" I retorted, avoiding his musings.

"Oh, but I haven't even gotten started now, have I? That is just unfair!" He leaned back on his chair, crossing his legs again. The muscles in his abs tensed, I looked away.

"Do you dislike your real name? Is that why you embraced 'the Joker'?"

"How about I ask the questions here for once? Do you dislike my unreal name?" He fell back on the table, resting on his elbows and excitedly smiling at me.

I looked into his eyes – they were amused and determined. It annoyed me more than it should…

"To be plain honest, I would prefer to call you by the real one."

"Why?" He thundered, baring his teeth in a wide grin "Don't you like jokes, Ms. Quinn?"

"That is beside the point…"

"And what isn't?"

I sighed again, and only then noticed I heaved lightly, sign of a trivial anger I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

"You have seen the face of fifteen unsuccessful psychiatrists before me..." I shrugged, affecting detachment "I'd like to try taking a different route."

My patient began chuckling, and his chuckle grew into a rude laughter. It made my blood boil...

"If you can get me to be honest from the start, then maybe I won't have to hide under so many masks, do you think? Unquestionably, it will be easier for you to 'figure me out' if I don't fake it so much..."

I blinked composedly, feeling, however, the heat go up to my cheeks: not only had my strategy failed, it had been awkwardly exposed.

"...And if I casually tell you my name, without noticing the importance of it, I'll inadvertently slip like butter into this self-righteous path of truth and atonement, coming out diagnosed – and hopefully _healed_ – on the other side!"

I feared my tense jaws were exposed by the hard way I swallowed.

"...Isn't that right... good doc?" His eyes sharply, amusedly sought the answer in mine – as well as the satisfaction of getting under my skin.

"So, is that what it is, your nickname? A tab to separate one person from the other?"

"You're off the beaten track, at least: Multiple Personality Disorder is a first!" He disdained while inspecting his fingernails.

"That's not what I mean: not _present_ personalities, but perhaps someone in the past? Someone you don't want to be?"

"I don't know... what do you think?" he probed cynically.

A jolt of excitement filled my stomach as the gears in my brain began turning.

"I think it's plausible. Maybe this new persona is an emancipation from who you were..."

"But why would I hate myself so?" he winced.

"It's not necessarily hate. The person you were might bear memories you don't want to face. Things you'd rather keep a secret, even from yourself."

"A secret identity!" He marveled.

"Precisely!"

"...And what secrets do you think these are?" He leaned forward, whispering with a sense of gravity, as if he feared discovering.

"Maybe violent... atrocious things..." I fed his memory. "Things _you_ did and wouldn't like to share..."

"Violent things..." he nodded, comprehending. "Like murder?"

"Murder, yes. Among other things."

"Such as?"

"Such as..." I enthusiastically began, the list forming in my mind... it was only the mocking light in Joker's eye that brought me back to reality. Having been so easily played with, I felt the blood in my veins run cold.

Holding his file under my hands, having read it over and over preparing for this interview, it's like at some point of having patient 13 in front of me I forgot what he was – a sadistic, dangerous murderer.

The late association made me fearful in retrospect: I watched his hands folded over the desk, imagining all the blood staining them invisibly and picturing the strength it would take them to end me, if he decided he really didn't like where I was going with my interrogation.

"Good doc..." he began; his voice tone serious at last, imbuing me with dread "if I hide in my past worst crimes than the ones that got me here..." His hands migrated, moving around the desk, until his fingers were casually close... so close they fiddled with the button on the sleeve of my lab coat "...and if I went through such troubles to hide them... What makes you think I'd so carelessly tell _you_?"

The fear I felt grew – his hand inched closer, the tip of his finger softly brushed against the knot of mine, but I dared not pull away.

When a crooked smile accidentally stretched his lip upward, however, proving him pleased and successful in his feat to menace me, the animal fear I felt turned into rage.

"You're fifteen years too early, doc." He sentenced "Come back when you've more to offer me than that self-help psychology you learned from your very worn-out copy of 'He's just not that into you'"

I squeezed my knuckles shut.

"...maybe _then_ I'll have something to tell you."

He fell back on his chair, looking annoyed and disappointed.

I dropped the pen I held in my hand – it made it too bluntly obvious that my fingers shook nervously.

"Now, before I return to my cell, do tell me: who do you think they'll assign next?"

I reached for my glasses – a bit of a vice when I struggled to hide my emotions, and one that happened to fail miserably this time around. Joker laughed, reading me.

"We're not done with our session..."

"Then say it! Just say it, and I might stay!" He threw his hand upwards, impatiently "Say my name out loud: I swear it won't make you feel funny..." his voice grew in intensity "I swear it won't make you feel any different from now…" Leaning forward on his elbows, his face drew closer to mine in the poor light – his eyes flickered, thrilled "It won't make you like or dislike me more, it specially won't make us two birds of a feather…"

My eyes skipped to the door, giving away the panic that shadowed my heartbeats during that unwelcome proximity. Joker's eyes followed mine, and he laughed:

"Oh no, don't expect him to come to the rescue: I might have promised our guard friend I'd behave for an entire week if he let me have a private moment with the doctor…" He winked, and shook while grinding his teeth, as if to hold in a laugh. My eyes grew wide.

"See? I do like to play a prank here and there…" he sighed, satisfied, and fell back on his chair "Do you trust me now, Miss Queen? The Joker…" he moved his index finger across his tattoos: a skull on a joker's hat, a successions of "hahaha's"across his chest and arm…

"Alright, you've made your point, Joker: An impressive introduction! Tell me, now: Do you always like to control the situations around you?"

He tensed his eyebrows, genuinely surprised:

"Me? Control the situations? My good doctor, I would have lost – or rather found – my mind a long time ago in this place, if that was the thing to make me tick: Imagine! Having a schedule for when to sleep, when to wake up, when to walk in a small square of sunlight, when to eat and when to… you know! I won't say this unpleasantries in front of the lady…"

I rolled my eyes.

"I _do_ have a soft spot for controlling _people_ …" he stirred in his chair, smiling a distant, pleased smile that seemed to answer to his memories. I felt a dark dread when I thought of asking about them. "…People are completely different from situations: They aren't quite as irreversible."

"What do you mean?" I wrote down the subject.

"Ah! I see you have finally found me interesting enough to deserve the tip of your pen… Alright, I'll let you in on my secret pleasures, if you insist so much: Once you've manipulated a situation into happening… Well, time takes it from your hand and drags it away, the moment is lost! No turning back the clock to play with it again! Do you understand?" He moved his hands together, gesticulating his mental picture. I nodded. "Whereas… when you control people… Oh, there's a whole lot more to enjoy!"

"Do you care to elaborate on that?"

He grinned, seeming to almost salivate …

"Well, you can make them come and go at your will – People are such feeble minded creatures, wouldn't you say so, doc? Give them hope, and they're all glad and smiles… Take it away, and they feel fear… Give them fear, and they show you the very fabric of their existence. These fabrics, if you can grab them quick enough, are like strings: And there you have it! Your own human puppet!"

I couldn't help but narrow my eyes at his proud smile.

"But… you wouldn't understand it! You doctors are much more the situation type, aren't you?"

"And why would you say that?"

"Well… for one, you're a psychiatrist. You've come to Arkham Asylum, a den full of the worst criminals in the city… As if that wasn't enough, you've come to interview _me_ …" he cocked his head sideways, stretching his lips in a curious excitement, like a child's "What compels you other than the pleasure of being face to face with danger, controlling its massive soft body with chopsticks to keep it from smothering you in your little, insignificant square of safety?" And, with his index finger and thumb, he simulated the movement of a pair of sticks snapping against each other, clicking his tongue and laughing at my expression.

"Do you consider yourself to be a 'massive danger', Joker?"

"I don't necessarily do… but you can't seem to think about anything else!" He chuckled, teasing me. "What with the hair on your nape sticking to your sweat and all…"

My insides stirred in a unique mix between dread and irritation as I automatically brushed my hand through my neck. Joker's eyes narrowed and his smile stretched.

"The air conditioner is broken…" I sighed, feigning – this time with more effort – causality.

"…And Arkham nights are very cold ones!" he murmured through a low, intense tone.

I took notes, pretending to ignore him.

"I'll tell you what, doc: Why don't you let me read whatever you've written on me so far? We can discuss whether you think I'm dangerous or not then" he winked.

"Is that you trying to control me?" I smiled for the first time – it was slightly unprofessional, but I wanted to see how he would react if I forced him to step down from his pedestal "You will find an attack to be less effective when you announce your main weapon!"

"Oh, but not at all! What type of fool do you take me for?" his grin stretched back. "If I try to control you, doc, you won't be able to tell! Rest assured on my innocence here!"

"You seem to derive a pleasure from scaring away your shrinks, Joker. You haven't had a single session in the last two months, because they couldn't find a willing doctor!"

"Oh, you know doctors! They're all… delicate and whatnot! Stab their hands to the table, and they give you the silent treatment for a year! I like to think I was merely browsing for the right one, and though we're off to a rough start, I like you already, Dr. Quinn! But what about you? What have you seen in me that made you so… willing?" he investigated.

"I have seen a sick little man _dying_ to draw attention!" I replied, losing my composure.

Joker's smile faltered… shrunk a bit… settled into an expression that examined me slowly, scheming… enjoying whatever crossed his mind. Iron determination shadowed his pupils then, giving me the shivers.

"Can I play that game, too?" he said softly at last, his chest shaking with a giggle "Can I play the game of figuring the doc out?"

"I don't think that is how this works!" I answered, pursing my lips and gathering my stuff under me.

"Oh… but we can make it happen!" he sung "With the right tools…" he stopped to smile "I can dissect the doctor 'til I find those strings I told you about…"

I picked up my things – half a session had gone by, but I figured that was enough for a first time. It was, at least, much more than everyone thought I'd endure…:

"Goodbye, joker!"

"Ah! Going so soon? But we were just getting down to the fun part… Oh well! Goodbye, doc! It was nice meeting you!" He pushed his chair back, blocking the door and smiling at me as I walked around the table, challenging me to move him away.

"Excuse me."

"But of course" he stood up before me, as close as weirdness allowed, and looked down into my eyes with a moderate smile. He glanced at me as if he challenged me not to feel it, too: not to feel what that small distance meant to him, not to feel how small a movement kept him from assaulting my lips with his.

"Guard!" I screamed through a chocked voice, and Joker smiled, victorious.

The door was barged open – I lingered in his eyes, afraid of what I'd be giving away if I escaped them too quickly… but I eventually did, eager to leave that now suffocating dark little room.

"As I said, nice meeting you, doc!" He screamed from the room, sitting relaxedly again.

I couldn't help but turn around and talk back, my blood boiling:

"You are not controlling me into giving up, Joker! _Next week_ is when I'll see you again! Now, enjoy your day!" I nodded, proud of myself, and walked away.

Joker's smile as he listened to me chased me a bit down the hall, however. He looked excited… Like he had just controlled me into staying.


	2. Chapter 2

Silly that It would still surprise, that it would still trigger an intimidating discomfort in me: My very first patient, in my very first job, was a stressful, enigmatic kind - even if he wasn't, the new scenario boring into my brain was enough to impress me into that particular wave of nervous dreaming a brain inflamed with stress likes to sustain throughout the night. Nonetheless, it quite upset me: To dream of that encounter repeating itself in different ways!

That I did not incur in the mistake of deeming patient 13 – or _Joker_ , as he liked to be called – like just another case, however! Walking home that night from the train station was eerier than usual – my skin was surrounded by a mist of paranoid apprehension, the hairs in the back of my neck stood up with any sound of alleyway life manifesting, and the thud of a cat jumping from a trash can made me jump with fright. It was evident that the Joker had managed to pinch my nerves, however hard I tried to prevent him going any further down the surface. But what had he, that disturbed me so promptly? I tucked my hands into my pockets and shrank inside my coat, deciding I would pin it down on our next session as I buzzed into my apartment.

Though I wanted to stay up and study – though I dreaded sleep, half aware of what my obsessed brain had in store for me in the screen of my closed lids – drinking coffee would be more than my scorched nerves could take, so hot cocoa would have to do! I enjoyed it in the living room of my new apartment, only now starting to see the beauty of living alone – roommates, pretty much like parents, have a tendency to detect a shadow of ill-mood, which usually excuses them to poke relentlessly, demanding to know what's wrong.

Laying on my bed at last, I _might_ have wished I didn't purposely keep my closest friend at bay throughout all of his romantic advances! It would have been nice to share a bed with someone that made me laugh out of this mood. It would, specially, be nice not to feel completely alone!

"Holy Paranoia, Harley!" I squeezed my temples – it felt like no bars in the world were enough to keep that man from me tonight!

And so I dreamed about just that: Joker sat expectantly on my living room, sipping from a delicate coffee cup from a set my mother gave me for the new home. "Oh, don't mind me, doc!" He smiled as I walked into the room "I just wanted to ask again: What have you seen in me?". His smile seemed to be his biggest threat; All windows and doors were locked, and I couldn't run!

Fortunately, the dismaying second day at Arkham wasn't half as… impressing as the first one. I found most of the patients to be rather ordinary: Violent, oppressive thugs that would break down and cry within the first few minutes of a hypnosis; impulsive murderers with clear motivation roots dating back to their childhood; ones that wanted to please, others that wanted to hit me… After my first two or three sessions, dealing with them was easy enough – forgetting them afterwards, too! Three days into my new job, and I could already leave it behind when I hit home.

After I was done with my scheduled sessions, I studied the intern's routine in the Asylum with a guard to walk me through it- The noisy disorder was kept under control; chaos was just as it was expected to be in a place as such, and I was beginning to see the possibility of peace in my position.

As we walked into the cafeteria, I saw The Joker walk by – the green hair making him distinguishable by far. Then, I only partially saw how distinctly he differed from the other inmates…

…By the end of the week, I'd be bored with my patients, with how easily untangled they were, with how predictable their torments. I would be looking forward to the opportunity of studying the Joker again after the first shock of 'dangerous murder' had gone numb – how many sessions before I'd grow bored of him, too?

Not once, in that cafeteria, did his silver cold eyes turn to gaze me – not once did he feel the weight of my stare and corresponded it. It made a sting of annoyance twist my stomach…

* * *

"Slow progress…" my inner demanding self rebuked with a sight, annoyed that after a whole week working in Arkham, I'd still feel endangered in an inmate's presence. It wasn't just any patient that happened to walk in though: On Wednesdays, my schedule belonged to the anticipated Patient 13. Unlike all other brutes, killers and maniacs however, my eyes were drawn to the Joker like magnets, driven by the initial believe that I'd be in danger if I didn't watch his every step.

"Good evening!" I greeted.

The Joker walked closer - his sleazy eyes crawled over the desk as he stretched his neck, trying to steal a glance of my notes. I eagerly pulled them closer to myself, and his teeth shone in a grin:

"Good evening, doctor!"

"How have you been?" I watched as he paced tranquilly through the room.

"Today's session started rather late, didn't it?" He turned to look at me "Could it be that you prefer nights over days? Cause my! If you do, then we already have this much in common…"

Though he smiled charmingly, spoke through a soft tone as if he was indeed just making light conversation or interested in comparing personalities, and looked peaceful enough – for a psychopathic murderer -, I knew it was a degree of irritation that forced him to ask. He supported his weight on the back of the chair, squeezing the guard with firmness enough for the muscles and vessels on his hand to stand out.

However scary the subtle demonstration he tried to conceal, I remained calm: it was, after all, expected:

"Oh, yes. I lost track of time and missed our appointment!" I declared as casually as I could.

"Oh, did you? I guess I could have expected that, but… No apologies?" He pulled the chair back. "I believe some would even say I got stood up! Not many girls would live to tell such an experience…"

"I'm sorry, Joker! I _have_ made you wait, and that is just rude! How does it make you feel?"

Blunt… stupid Harley! Joker examined me with a smart curiosity – the annoyance was gone, and a mild smile stretched up his red lips, moved by the amusement of reading my intention – Not his merit however: I failed to better conceal my interest in his frustration, rendering him, instead, more excited than before.

"Now, what was it that kept you so busy, I wonder" He gave up on sitting down – which he was about to do – and paced around the table in suspicious steps.

"Hmm… Paperwork!"

I failed again – Joker's smile stretched sideways.

"Already? My! Some important new lady doc you are… Getting swamped in your very first week! Held up by paperwork in your lonely little room…"

I fought the urge to demanded that he approached no further, bargaining that showing how apprehensive his slow pace got me would only make him feel the more empowered. Instead, all I did was sit back on my chair to earn physical distance, for closer came his bare torso – the creepy tattoos mocked, challenging me not to look at them, as did the discrete muscles stretching up his skin.

"I could even pity you, doc…" He stopped before me, supported his hands on the table and jumped back, sitting on it.

I shrank on my seat as his knees nearly touched me – his grey eyes pierced into mine didn't permit much movement, however, and an enthralled smile threatened to skin me alive if I concealed anything:

"But… You know… there is only one problem here – it's that pair of dark circles under your eyes!"

"Oh? I'm sorry, I _am_ rather tired…" I pushed up my glasses, hoping this would make it less visible.

"Oh no, they are absolutely adorable, no need to feel self-conscious here, now look at me…"

For some traitorous impulse, I did look, and his eyes sunk deeper into mine and his smile stretched:

"Yes – you are absolutely stunning, Dr. Quinn: I guess the paperwork suits you!"

I looked away, feeling my cheeks grow hotter.

"These little guys tell a different story, however… But Shhhh!" he pressed an index finger over his puckered scarlet lip when I looked up in surprise "Don't tell: It's my little secret that I can read those eyes as well as they try _,_ try _, try_ to read mine!" The finger he used to silence himself drew closer to my face, threatening to touch my lips as well… but he stopped, satisfied with how much I cringed "They tell me _someone_ didn't sleep a wink last night! Maybe the one before that, too… What happened, doc? Were you that anxious to see me?"

He smiled presumptuously as he waited for my answer – presumptuous not in an absurd way, deluding himself that I felt attracted to him. It was a very sane confidence that rather spoke for his ability to disturb and control how I'd feel… And that could collect every sign of it afterwards just from how I folded the muscles on my face! I stared him back, watching the thin black pupils of his eyes fluctuating inside the vibrant ecstatic blue gleam.

"Oh, what? Hardly…" I remembered to recompose after a long minute of intimidated staring, and scoffed in forced playfulness "If only I had time to waste with such anxieties!" And I smiled.

Joker's smile accompanied mine – his eyes didn't wink inside mine… but as soon as I was done shaking my head from one side to the other pretending what I had heard was nothing but an innocent joke, he stated, starting with a soft, almost whispering voice, like he was telling me a secret:

"Now, everybody knows it's just pathetic for a patient to lie to his shrink! Isn't there a clause on your big book of rules that says the same about the contrary?"

I squeezed my eyebrows together, Joker cocked his head to the side, watching fascinatedly for when I'd understand.

"I don't follow…"

"Oh, of course you don't, doc!" He swiftly got up and turned his back on me "but… whatever! Let us change the subjects: I don't mean to embarrass you… who knows the things I might find if I corner you?"

Before I could chase the impetus of answering him on that, Joker started again, stopping in front of the mirror and running his hand thorough his hair locks, carefully pulling them back "What are you thinking of the city? It sure is lively out there, yes… but…" he took his time, gazing into the reflex and fixing his look "Do you remember to lock your doors every night?"

"Of course!" I crossed my legs, gaining back my confidence and the rhythm of my breath now that personal space was restored "Gotham is a dangerous place!"

"But… do you get up and check it?" He smiled, peering at me through the mirror.

"Sometimes, maybe…" I frowned.

"How _many_ times a night?"

I narrowed my eyes – Joker started to display more clearly the pleasure he derived from fear, and currently tried to pluck such pleasure from me passively – feeding off the fears I naturally have, to later escalate into actively causing it. I decided it was high time I took back control of the conversation, only then noticing that he had asked many more question than answered.

"You seem restless today. Have you noticed? Do you think there is a specific reason for that?"

I assumed it was still the after effects of my intentional delay that made him move about nervously, and wished he would acknowledge that.

"But do you really have to bring in the dull stuff, doc? I like it, don't get me wrong… But I like it much better when we're just chatting. I'm sure I'm not so hard to deal with that you have to bring in the whole Freud and whatnot… What do you say?" He turned from the mirror with a wide grin.

I held in a smile through looking down on my folders:

"Okay! What do you want to talk about, Joker?"

" _Now_ we are making some progress!" he eagerly returned to the table, pulling back the chair again "I don't know, there is a lot on my mind ! I've been thinking hard since our last session…" he turned the chair backwards and sat on it, resting his folded arms on the guard and spreading open his legs – the trousers tightened around his slim legs, the muscles of his abdomen tightened.

"Thinking about what?"

"About this whole therapy thing. I don't know doc, I might be wrong, but I'm feeling very positive about this…"

"About our sections?" I chased, unbelieving.

"Oh yes, definitely about our sections! I never put much faith in doctors before, doc… but with you… Yes, with you I think it's different!" He mused, and smiled in the end.

"Do you believe I can help you?" I inquired further, a little too innocently. Joker snickered a dark, mad laugh that put an end to my hope, however:

"Oh no, doc…" softly, he started "I believe that _I_ can help _you_!"

I faced him – his grin widened as his eyes preyed on me.

My quick fingers ushered me out of the uncomfortable dumbness I fell momentarily into, pulling up a folder to my face, which my eyes still took a second longer to trace, escaping his:

"It seems you have indeed behaved well this week: No reports on you, Joker! You have been my least troublesome patient this week…"

Innocently, again, I thought that if I could win him with small demonstrations of favoritism, he might show improvements…

"Oh, come on, don't turn this into a competition, doc!" he joked through his coarse voice "You don't want me to bash someone's head in, do ya? That's some twisted fetiches you have there, young lady…" he cocked his head back and eyed me with a flickering smile.

"Oh no! Not at all!" I blushed with embarrassment "I am genuinely complimenting you on your progress, and hoping to show you that these sections can be as helpful to you as they are to me!"

For the first time since I'd met him, I saw him narrow his eyes:

"So you _admit_ it's helping you?" he inquired.

"Of course! You are a very complex individual, our experience together is helping me through all the other cases I have in this Asylum!"

He smiled me a despondent, disappointed smile.

"What about you? Do _you_ admit it's helping you? I mean, I can already see it is, and I've been only working here for a week…"

"Well, I _did_ promise that guard…" he rolled his eyes, recollecting "And a promise is a promise!"

I frowned, reaction which he quickly catalogued and responded to with a thrilled glow lighting up his mad eyes.

"I…" I paused, remembering his words from the previous section to make sure I wasn't wrong "I thought you were joking…"

"Oh, did you, now?" He cocked his head, enjoying making me scared.

"That seems like a lovely relationship! Should I tell the warden about your peculiar amity with the guard?"

"And why would you do that?!" he laughed with genuine disbelief, casually supporting his chin on the chair and facing me innocently.

"I believe it to be extremely inappropriate for you to exchange favors with an employee of this facility!" I scolded.

"Here it is, the big book of rules again! Don't disappoint me, doc: You have quite the potential!" He impatiently stirred on his chair, picking himself up "It's a win-win situation from which you could benefit, too – so why would you spoil the fun?!"

"Joker, I have absolutely no intention of exchanging or getting anything back for you good behavior, outside the limits of my profession!" I shouted.

"Oh, no no no… absolutely not, doc!" he arched forward, supporting his palms on the table, facing my angry glare with his amused, frozen eyes "I mean that why would you throw away this window of private, alone time, when you could have so much _fun_ with it?"

And he smiled, expecting an answer with a watering mouth. Though his eyes instilled both fear and hatred into mine, though his confident audacity made my veins burn and though I couldn't help but tense my jaw in face of his unclouded expression, I decided I wouldn't grant him any further reaction, for it was all he wanted.

"Sit back on your chair!" I commanded.

"Alright, alright…" he sighed, falling back on his seat looking, still, pretty pleased "You're no fun, doc! I expected more appreciation, considering my good will… Now…." He sighed, finally disposed to change the subject and, apparently, talk serious "It's your first week here, you say? Allow me to recommend some light reading to lull you in tonight…" he crossed his arms over his chest "There is a storage room right next to the warden's office. Everything they know on every patient is locked away in there…"

His eyes hid some very intimate pleasure I couldn't unfold. As he watched me try, he grinned, clarifying:

"Consider it my own welcoming gift to you, as I'm sure it will come in handy with the rest of your patients – the ones that happen to not be… as helpful as me!"

Mysteriously, then, he traced the reaction in my eyes, holding back his smile.

"Alright, Joker…" I conceded, getting up "But you're not getting any special treatment from this…"

"I sincerely hope not!" He smiled relaxedly, looking up at me as I passed by him. I waited for the door to open eyeing him from over my shoulder. He looked down on the table, examining his own hands.

"Guard!" I called, bothered by his delay.


	3. Chapter 3

Joker's "light reading" might have been just that, if I had stuck to the suggestion alone: I knew most of my patients' felonies, there would be nothing particularly interesting there if I decided to read about them… Instead, like a mouse to a perfect trap, I went straight to his file – to the nameless Joker no one knew how to formally call; to the thick, brown folder filled with the fading pages – to the overly detailed reports of a sadist's crimes.

"First… it shocks you out of sleep!" He grinned from the shadows, the lamp dying weak on the table, barely enough to let me make out the dead gleam on his eyes and the reflection on his metallic teeth.

It _did_ shock me out of sleep – I scratched my eyes, squeezed them together, watched the raw images repeat in the darkness of my lids for hours and hours. The violence was impressive, the blood burned bright in my imagination; the whole was more than I could take!

"It consumes your thoughts, awaken or otherwise…" he lifted his palms before his eyes, watching them fascinated, as if he could see the gore from the past tainting it.

Again, he was right: Paranoia, fear, nightmares followed reading his extensive history. I dreamed of him – of his coarse, dry laugh echoing through the corridor while I waited for him to come into the interrogation room. My body freezing, moving, squirming slightly from the expectation. I dreamed of him standing in the doorway when I opened the door to leave in the morning – my body shaking, panicking, crumbling – his hand around my throat pulling me back inside, locking us in where no one could hear us…

"It's impossible - you repeat to yourself. It doesn't feel right…" His voice invaded my subconscious.

It didn't – somehow, somewhere, I allowed myself to create my own persona behind the Joker; now that I knew the extensiveness of his crimes, it didn't feel right. But it wasn't logic alone that perplexed me, for if I were to resort to logic, of _course_ he was sociopath, of _course_ he'd spend hours on end torturing his victims, of course he'd wait until they wished for death…

What shocked me the most was to think I had been face to face with a person like that for so long. To think we were locked inside the same square of limited, poorly-lit space weekly, and that he at times spoke so pleasantly to me, I enjoyed the session more than my license allowed.

"…'There must be some kind of mistake, I must be dreaming'…" He read in a mockery, mimicking, unaware or not, how _I_ felt.

Yes, I must be dreaming – it felt like I was. I dreamed, finally, of his bare chest – of the sardonic tattoos mocking as they crashed onto me, as they watched my skin, as they pressed against it, making me sweat and making me moan, his teeth sinking into my bosom, biting painfully…

Whether they all came to me in the same night, I knew not – Some of them barely felt like a dream when I woke, others I only recollected days later when a link with reality summoned them back to conscious memory. The closer he got to me in them, however, the more they disturbed.

"Then, after a while… after it pains and tortures you so persistently, for so long…" his open fingers squeezed the air with vigor, he grinded his teeth, tensing the muscles around his jaw "Day and night the flashes plaguing you…"

I put a hand on my forehead, measuring how much the recollection alone had made me sweat.

"Eventually, Dr. Quinn, they cease to impress!" The seriousness covering his face came undone, and the diabolical smile stretched again as if it had never left. "So… did you have a nice week?" was how his happy inquiry finished.

The thrilled light in his eye showed he knew _exactly_ how my week was – he knew what it would be like when he suggested that I used the archive room. I cleared my throat for, at last, he was right about that, too: By the end of the week, I had grown emotionally numb.

"A significant change of subject!" I sighed, looking away from the window: a storm poured that evening, rolling down the bars beyond the glass sheets.

"I was about to tell you of the final stage, when you _can't live without it_ … But I figured the doctor looks stressed enough as it is!" he sat back on his chair.

" _Charming_!" I relented, opening again my file. "Do you think that is how everyone reacts to murdering?"

"Well, there is always the first time… And yes, I guess that is how it works for _everybody…_ But are we talking only about me here, doc?" He grinned sideways, squeezing his eyebrows in a quick investigation of my mood.

"I like to think we are!" I mumbled, reading my previous notes on him. It felt like very little progress had been made – when I thought I was close to figuring him out, the motivations behind his behavior would reveal themselves, driving me to a completely different direction…

I pressed down the pencil. "Wrong! Wrong!" My mind repeated nervously as I crossed out what I had just written – the graffiti broke against the paper in a loud snap echoing along with the rain, it shocked me briefly, like bones breaking.

"Looks like it was an eventful one…" Joker chuckled.

Bones snapping… One of the faded police reports in that file told precisely about that: The Joker breaking every single bone in a person's body… I lifted my eyes up to him in small surprise – that he looked so politely, so strangely composed for a maniac…

"I have a very technical, psychological question I would like to ask, doc, since we're running out of things to say here…"

"What is it, Joker?"

"What drives women to call their partners 'daddy' during intercourse? Is it some sort of twisted Oedipus complex?"

"If you put a knife to their throats, they _will_ say whatever you ask them to!" I closed the file impatiently, facing him.

"Geez… If I didn't know you so well, doc, I'd say you're in a terrible bad mood today! Did the naughty doctor read what she wasn't supposed to?" he grinned from the dark.

"Was it really something I shouldn't? Because you seem rather thrilled…" I accused.

"I am…" he muffled a laugh, shoving a hand inside his pocket and pulling out a round, golden watch "You see, doc, I am a bit of a curious mind myself! Me and my watch here – namely, _time_ – were betting how long it would take until you read it. Better late than never, it's what the clock always says!" And, shoving it back into his pocket, he smiled at me.

"You're simply diabolical!" I couldn't help but profess, stressed for an entire week.

"I am, doc – but don't you wanna talk about it?" he frowned playfully "Don't you wanna… ask me why I did it? How? What it felt like for me? It seems, from here, that you're not interested in hearing any of that…"

I felt the uncomfortable breath of exposure hit me in the face as the Joker's eyes expected me to answer. I looked to the sides, looking for one:

"I am… busy!"

"Too busy being a psychiatrist to be a psychiatrist, is it?" He smiled, much too aware "No – I'll tell what it is… _Enlighten_ you, if you will! Raw emotions… they aren't always as easy to pin down when you're so compromised with… whatever it is!" he surveyed me enigmatically "It's _hard_ to face it, doc – to face that I have murdered, raped, abused, broken, pierced…"

The list made my brain sting - I held my temples in my fingers.

"So you'd rather pretend I did nothing so shocking as a free, motiveless crime! And why is that? Did they not teach you in school that not all of us look hideous?" he stopped to laugh "…That not all of us are dumb, driven, big buffed beasts? Oh! You look rather bothered, doc! Tortured, even! Don't tell me: Did I just break a fantasy for you?" His face at last twisted in mocking preoccupation.

I frowned.

"Shut up, joker!"

"Because… you know… I would _hate_ to take away the one thing keeping you warm at night in that lonely place of yours. And the one thing keeping this hellhole interesting!" he turned his palms up, turning his head to look around. "There is a limit to cruelty, doc! God forbid you realize life is a mediocre _cul-de-sac._ "

"Don't worry – I won't!" I looked him back.

"Not for me, you wouldn't!" his smile hesitated, his eyes courageously facing me back.

I wondered if you had to have something missing inside of you to find peering into someone for so long a matter of no consequence. Or maybe something missing to feel as tortured, as scorching vulnerable as I did then.

"And speaking of night…" his red lips stretched over his teeth; the dead light inside his eye lit up again – there came the small, sadistic pleasure he liked to partake in at the end of each session, the strange small torture he could perform from his position.

"Did you remember to check your locks last night?"

He snickered, as expected, gulping down my reaction. It was hard, annoyed though.

"Of course."

"It _is_ a very dangerous city…" his eyes still measured mine.

Being the first to drop off the stare contest, I sighed, rubbing my palms against my face.

"It doesn't seem fair, does it?" he lowered his voice to a more condescending tone "You know, deep down, that I am too normal for this place..." he read "How can you deal with all that? How can you treat something that might as well be you tomorrow? Tsc tsc… not fair at all, doc!"

I held my forehead, supporting the weight of my head and the pain that throbbed in there, not caring for giving Joker his desired victory. More than a psychiatrist, I was also a susceptible human being – perhaps this was the secret to dealing with those people without losing your mind: not _intending_ to be superior!

"I'll tell you what we do…" he started again, enthusiastically, pulling his chair closer to the table "This will make things easier on you…" he arched forward, taking hold of my arms in his firm fingers and pulling them apart, exposing my face – his skin burned hot against mine, his finger lightly stroking my sensitive wrist.

"We're gonna make a deal!" he smiled confidently into my confused eyes " _You_ will pretend that I am crazy and that you have something to offer me… some sort of enlightenment all those years of study _have_ to have poured divinely over you… And _I_ will pretend to envy your so called freedom and long for rehabilitation, at the mercy of your benevolent gleam… how is that?"

I squeezed my eyebrows together.

"And if you ever feel overwhelmed, like it's too much for your brief years of individual experience to take, we can simply switch places: I will be the doctor, and you…" an excited giggle interrupted him "…you will be _free_ …"

Remembering they still held me, I gently pulled my arms from his hands, uncomfortably sitting back, away from him. An expectant smile awaited for my answer…

"Free to what?"

"To think… To feel… To exist behind those thick rimmed glasses where you like to hide!"

"What makes you think such freedom is better than the one to come and go?"

"Why, doctor… Because it's better to be imprisoned by bars than by all those morals holding you back from what you _really_ wish you could do…"

"There is nothing I would like to do that morale disapproves of!" I calmly defended myself, relieved that at least this one point didn't apply to me.

"Really, doctor? But how can you know you wouldn't exchange freedoms with me until you've tried it?" His eyes teased.

"I have never felt like taking a life. That is how I know!" I retorted.

"And if I were to show it to you…" he laughed at the mental image "If I were to give you the chance to understand it, would you be grateful? Or angry?"

"If you'll excuse me… I'm not feeling very well today!" I walked to the door, genuinely suffering from a stomach ache, which I feared would only be worsened by Joker's enthusiastic psychopathy.

"Suit yourself doc. One last thing though…"

He stopped me by holding me by the wrist as I passed through him. Such liberties had not been verbally allowed at any point… and still, Joker seemed to confidently know this was the ideal day to break the taboo of his light, warm touch pressing down my skin. I pulled it back nervously.

"It's dark today – late, also. Later than the last time we've been together."

"And?"

His eyes hid in the shadows some perverted idea.

"I was just wondering… Where the survival instincts stand and all… Isn't it of human nature to want all their senses in full function before diving into the unknown?" His dark lips squeezed against each other, he pulled back his green hair.

"Are you implying I don't have my senses about me?" I lifted an eyebrow.

"I'm sure vision is slightly impaired…" he looked around himself as one who's about to tell a secret looks for undesirable witnesses "It _is_ awfully dark…"

It was – Joker's half visible face sitting next to me was the biggest proof of it.

"Strange choice… isn't it, doc?" he grinned again, moved by the strangeness in my expression. "It's almost as if you liked danger…"

"I've heard that a billion times…" I angrily started, pushing the door open "You're not being very original"

"Oh yes, I know you have, there _is_ another explanation, too, but… highly unlikely!"

Darned Joker! I looked back at him, curious. His eyes read that, too:

"…That maybe you don't feel endangered at all!" He lifted an eyebrow, investigating.

Didn't I?

Not even after last week's tense 'reading'? – I suddenly didn't know if it was my thoughts who asked, or if it was the joker's jolly voice teasing me. It sent a shiver down my spine, to suddenly realize I had my back turned on him – that some part of my body purposely _ignored_ what he was.

"Have a good night, doc!" he laughed, wrapping up the confusing he had poured inside "And don't forget to check your locks…".


	4. Chapter 4

The Joker came into the room wearing a dark red vest – a shirt neatly tucked under formal pants of the same color, a moss green tie around his neck and polished black shoes. My heart skipped a beat upon first beholding him, imagining for a second it could be someone else… Upon recognizing him as the clown prince of crime that terrorized the streets of Gotham before his inevitable arrest, my heart still reacted, with a little girl's composition, to being in the presence of a handsome man.

Inappropriate, sure… but, again, more than a psychiatrist, I was a human being – a susceptible human being, often ruled by primitive instincts that knew no such distinctions as criminal records. Nature is what rules us in a basic level… and nature loves violence! Being aware of that and not freaking out in the inevitability of finding a patient's sociopathic drive interesting was the first step towards being a confident, composed psychiatrist.

Still, I felt myself creep and had to look away – That man seemed to stir a conflict between Dr. Harley and nature Harley much too often, and with growing intensity.

"To what do we owe the occasion?" I cleared my throat.

"The good doctor asked that I dressed accordingly – I decided to go with my favorite piece. What do you think?" He paced slowly before the table, looking fixedly at me.

"It looks extravagant!" I lied, to which he chuckled.

I _did_ ask him to wear something over his torso on our last session – on the unfortunate day, I had been possessed by bizarre dreaming at home. A bizarre, twisted, hot dream in which I embraced death for the sake of pleasure, submissive to the first so long as I received the latter. Such dream made his bare torso look positively distracting, positively disturbing, and I asked that he would dress properly for the next session.

The piece, along with his green hair and extremely pale skin, made him look like a clown from some adult fantasy, however. More than that, it made him look exquisitely charming.

"Is that why you can't look at me properly?" he teased, then added quickly before I had the time to answer "I would have bribed the guard to bring me one of my favorite fragrances too, but I figured that would be overkill."

"How so?"

He turned, pleased that I asked:

"When you press too many buttons at the same time, doc, it's hard to tell which one _actually_ responded…"

Pulling down the tie with an index finger, the vessels on his neck jumped out – half a card from his tattoo being made visible. My forehead sweated nervously – I think I preferred him when he dressed like an inmate.

"But enough about me – How have _you_ been, Harley?" He stood in my view "Got up to check your locks many times this week?"

"It's Dr. Quinn, Joker. I mean, Dr. Quinnzel…" Of course the stupid slide wouldn't go unnoticed – but Joker was so kind as to laugh to himself, quietly, while I felt my temperature rise from embarrassment "And the answer is _none_ , actually…" I had busied myself so much in trying to conceal my reactions inside my notes, that I myself was startled by my answer: it had been a quite peaceful week in that sense!

The joker bullied me so constantly about checking my locks, it made me more paranoid than the chaos in Arkham did by itself… But, out of so much persisting, I seemed to have grown tired of it – Looking up to his aware eyes, they shone with the pleasure of a good psychiatrist. Had he cheated me out of my fear?

"Then I was right to dress properly – It's a reason for celebration, isn't it, the evolution of paranoia!?"

"Did you do this on purpose?" I reclined back, finally giving him my full attention.

"Oh, no need to thank me, I was just trying to help…" he pulled a chair and sat down "As a reward for your progress, Harley dear, I will have a present prepared for you today…"

He lifted a finger before I could start a protest, seeing it coming, and continued, uninterrupted:

"It's impolite to reject a courtesy – You have to be grateful, for I won't admit a capricious girl throwing a tantrum over such a rare occasion as _me_ giving away presents… _Specially_ not my favorite girl: That would make me extremely mad with you!" His eyes chased down mine. "Ideally… you will think of it as a privilege: to be spoiled by me!"

I observed with intimidated, regretful curiosity how his entire demeanor seemed to change now that his exterior appearance matched that of a gentleman. New confidence inspired his speeches, and something about how naturally he did so told me _this_ was the real Joker. Whatever unsophisticated beast came before that seemed but another one of his experiments…

"What if I decided I don't want to keep it – the present?"

"I'm sure the idea won't even cross your mind once you get it…" he smiled "But if you do so anyway… well, then I think a proper punishment should be in place!"

If this was another day, I would have held in a laugh – for Joker's wild fantasies often made me do so. But… now that he dressed as he did, as the joker I saw in the newspaper cuts, I thought him much more believable.

"Alright, I'll take it… let's see what you have there for me!"

He smiled, watching me fascinatedly.

"Look at us now, doc… Look at how _unprofessional_ we are! Isn't this a delight?" He sighed, moving on his seat "You telling me I look extravagant, me asking you the questions… There is no line between us here!"

I lifted an eyebrow and listened patiently.

"Though you might look at me from your high pedestal of alleged mental superiority, you know deep down that what I say is true. Your subconscious mind knows it, if the awareness hasn't allowed you to see it yet! After all… you _do_ miss me throughout the week, don't you?"

"I have to say, you are my most fascinating patient, yes…"

"And _you_ are my most fascinating project! But are you sure 'patient' is the noun you're looking for? Do I look patient to you at all?" he joked.

"Would you have me refer to you as something else?"

"I don't know, would you?" He supported himself on the table, his hand played close to mine "Would you call me something else? …Something… vulgar… embarrassing… demeaning, for one or the two of us?"

Slowly, I retracted my fingers, fearing they might touch him…

"Would you call me by something that makes your chest expand, and the breathing become uneven?"

Did I breathe unevenly? I checked myself… it was only because his eyes were so close, peering down on mine as if I was locked! Probably detecting something on how my eyes shyly attempted to avoid his, he laughed:

"You have surrendered fear, but there is something else… something lacking, isn't it? What is it, Harley? And what do I get in return, if I figure it out on my own?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" I let out confidently, only to realize my voice was chocked, distracted, elsewhere… Joker grinned, his eyes narrowing.

"Don't you? Then I'll take the liberty to tinker with it… until, you know…" he grinned, enjoying the suspense "Until you _feel_ it…"

"We should get back to the subject…" I interrupted.

"What subject?" Joker cocked his head sideways, his face closing in on mine slowly, carefully "We haven't done anything but chat for the last three weeks! See? This is how intimate we have become! I'm sure one longs for the other's company, for the other's conversation, for that window between the chaos where you can sit and talk about whatever you want… I only wish you'd acknowledge that, doc! I wish you'd say whatever you wanted to me, too… Like I do to you!"

"You don't think I do?" I answered, only because I was afraid of what my silence might occasion.

"Oh, not at all! I _know_ sometimes you want to say you hate me, but only when I get too close to the truth you hide under that extra tight skin! I know sometimes you want to stab me in the heart or something, just to check if I really have one!" he grinned disturbingly, as if the idea appeased him "I know you want to say that I scare you, but thinking like that makes you feel a hot tingle up your spine, and you're afraid to like it! You want to say that I'm weird, but you don't really think so! You want to say that you're lost, lost, _lost_ in these sessions and that you have no idea of what you're doing, but the unaware pleasure of getting up and coming to work every Wednesday keeps you from realizing you're drawing a blank here!"

I frowned – not because the joker approached progressively, not because his smile closed on my quivering lips, not because I could feel his hot breath kissing my face – but because my brain absorbed what he said, worked around it, and came back with no protests.

"Finally, you would _love_ to tell me you had a weird, big-girl dream about me… That you can't understand why I'm in there, or why I'm in here, though you know the reason for both: It's the same! The crime, the danger, the violence…"

As the Joker himself got caught in the words he separated for me, it was easy to regain control over the taunting conversation – or to at least fight back from the uncomfortable silence:

"You think I'm attracted to the violence?"

"All of us which can't practice it are…" he chuckled lightly, confident on his statement.

"And to fear, too?"

"Fear releases adrenaline – It's one of the few wild emotions men today are still allowed to experience in civilized society, isn't it?"

"And is that why you are sending me a present? Because you believe I am attracted to you?"

I squinted my eyes – Joker got up and sat on the table, leaning down close to me:

"Naturally, one of us has to take the next step in our relationship. Oh, it's scary, I know – trust me, I _do_! But don't worry doc, _I'll take care of you_!"

* * *

One day off was fine. Two felt strange, and three were despondently curious. I sat by the window and watched the rain fall down – that season brought a lot of them, but all were watched through the thick bars surrounding Arkham. I realized, on those quiet three days, that I had barely spent any time away from my place of work since I started there. On weekends I was either there, studying my cases in my office, or hidden away in my bedroom reviewing and cataloguing files I had compiled on each patient – the lights I learned to adjust halfway out of darkness, like they were in the old asylum, because it was easier to concentrate then.

The background screams I had to go without – sometime a distant heavy metal playing on the computer, or any genre I disliked, was good enough to make me feel in the institution – it helped shut personal thoughts away.

And why did I suddenly love my job so much? I didn't. It wasn't satisfaction with the place that made me want to linger there rather than return to my own house – I just happened to have spent so much time inside, that I feared going back to my life and finding it meaningless. After all, what was the sense behind each ambition? What was the sense behind _my_ existence out there, when inside, locked away, everyone seemed to exist just the same? I swear to God, sometimes those inmates were the happiest individuals I ever met… and who's to call them crazy? Everything seemed too relative… as relative as whether I wanted to get up and go out to do something around the city, or if I was just programmed to believe it is what normal people do.

Normal…

The tormenting short vacation (three days without working and a full weekend for myself) was occasioned by some sort of illness that struck the asylum – or so they assumed, as all of my scheduled patients for those days got transferred to the hospital.

As I sat upon the window sill perusing an old favorite reading I repeated every year - failing, however, to attribute much meaning to the loose words my eyes ran upon – I secretly, in a background thought, wished the Joker wasn't being victimized by the same disease that swept away my other patients.

He didn't, it's the truth – Healthy as a horse, and with a mind full of evil much more than of madness, as I was about to find out. He had not forgotten the promise of the gift, though _I_ did… And all my patients being rushed to the hospital… Well, that was just the wrapping!

My present came in the form of a knock on the door just as I repeated reading the same paragraph again to absorb it. When I opened it, the present pushed me inside, grabbed me by the neck, closed the door behind us… The present made me scream, left me hysterical, covered in blood!


	5. Chapter 5

_What's up, guys? I'm terribly sorry it took me so long to update this!_

 _In my defense, The Joker was doing something very particular to him: drive others crazy! - me, currently._

 _I bit off more than I could chew in this fanfiction and now I stumble towards writing it through. The Joker is such a varying, strange and unpredictable character, I find myself sweating nervously thinking how he would act next!_

 _I'll try my best to keep entertaining you as the previous chapters have done, and thank you so much for taking your time and for the awesome reviews =)_

 _Once again, Sorry! ^^"_

* * *

"Ma'am… wait!"

Ignoring the guard's call, I stormed inside – my body shook violently with what I believed was a mix between fear and hatred, but… upon further analysis, it couldn't be fear. There was no space for fear there: My veins burned too hot!

A policeman stood at the cell door with a riffle on his hand, facing my torturer. Walking in, so did I: The joker sat on the cell's bed, freshly out of a demonic nap – the green strands of his slicked hair fell over his cold, unremorseful eyes - Those lit once they spotted me:

"Well, well… is this one of those dreams again?" he smiled "What a pleasant surprise, doc!"

A human – above it all. I rushed forward, gnarling like an enraged animal, but my fist was held midair by the guard that followed my frayed entrance into the Joker's cell. The tenant didn't flinch upon my savage approach.

"What did I tell you about throwing tantrums?" he smiled sideways.

"Calm down, ma'am!" the guard warned me, impatiently.

The police officer walked forward – Joker's fixed glance towards me wasn't interrupted by the approach, neither was mine.

"What makes you think he did it?" he asked.

"He _told_ me he would!" I roared through my teeth, holding my shaking arms from reaching out and grabbing him.

The previous night, the Joker sent a big, violent thug to my door. One that tried to subjugate me. Fear, panic, nightmare were all real as I was pressed against the wall with a gun pointed at my face. When the brute's hand ran down my body, the frenzy took me over – a knife awaited at the counter.

And so did twelve hours at the precinct as I explained having killed a man with a kitchen knife. The memory – the awareness alone made my stomach twist with disgust.

" _He_ sent a man to _kill_ me!" again I sentenced through a clenched jaw.

The cop casually looked him over.

"Did you?" he asked.

The Joker shrugged.

"I thought I might treat the girl to something nice, but…" he stopped to giggle. A punch on his teeth silenced him though… and regardless of how stretched and scorched my nerves were, I still jumped back from the violent sound of his face being thrown to the side.

When he looked back at us, a bloody smile disturbed me.

The cop turned to me, most likely seeking my approval of his act – seeking to see if I appreciated him doing what I could not, and if I would stay quiet about it. I lifted my chin, pretending not to have noticed.

"We're taking this punk down to the precinct to be booked – that is, If he's a good boy and confesses…" the cop teased.

"Will I get candy for it?" Joker's eyes narrowed, challengingly.

"We know what you'll get if you _don't_." the guard added with a chuckle. It was easy to tell that the prospect of having an excuse to beat a prisoner up serving as exciting.

"Is there anything else you want to tell him?" The guard turned to me and asked, reading himself to go.

"Oh yes, please, give us some… _alone_ time. It would be a tragedy to waste a girl's rage by not feeling the extension of it!" Joker teased.

"You shut up!" The cop lifted a closed fist, gathering the strength.

"No! Alright! Give me a minute with him!" I rushed to say, thoroughly agonizing before the idea of Joker's teeth bashing against the man's leather knuckle again. Apparently, I was the only person present who didn't actually _enjoy_ violence.

"You heard the lady!" Joker smiled teasingly, unafraid of how hard retaliation would hit him on the way to the precinct. "Care to uncuff me?" he lifted his bound hands.

"Dream on!" the cop spit on the floor next to him, and reluctantly walked away, closing the cell door behind me. "You have five minutes."

I looked back at Joker – his eyebrows were lifted, waiting anxiously with a smile. A hot gush of betrayal rushed to my eyes, making them sting.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why not, doc?" His eyes gleamed intensely, fascinatedly surveying my hysteria "It's not every day that we get the chance to experience something entirely different! And isn't that what life is about? Experiences?"

"Experience!" I half-laughed "Experience! Is that why you send a person to _kill_ me?!"

Joker stood up from his seat – no smile on his face this time, just his eyes surveying me – my quivering lips, my teary eyes, my shaking hands… He took all in as if he almost pitied me, and walked a step forward. I walked a step back – his bound hands _did_ give me a bigger sense of safety, however, so it was easier to remain in a stiff, anger-inspired position…

"But I didn't send him to kill you." He cocked his head to the side, walking closer.

"How did you know it would… How…" I closed my eyes, breathed – saw the images return to me, and opened them up again "How did you know I was going to _kill_ him?!"

"Why, because you had it in you all the time, doc!" he beckoned me, smiling innocently "The whole fascinating theory, dying to be tested! And frustration sure helps, too – I wouldn't have taken that risk alone, oh no! If you weren't so pissed, then you just _might_ have gotten yourself killed!" he grinned presumptuously.

I pursed my lips together – furrowed my eyebrows as they threatened to drop, held in the childish cry shaking my bones and sucked in the air:

"You're a monster!" my voice shook.

"A privilege, I said! – Are you holding on so tight to something you don't even believe in anymore?" he frowned, genuinely inquiring "I have set you free, Harley – free from this maddening mask of self-righteousness you people like to wear liking it or not. Unlike you, I'd love for us to sit down and enjoy a long conversation. You made it so we don't have much time, but I must ask nonetheless: I have a singular need for details! So how did it feel like? What did he look like? How were his eyes, when you looked down on them as he bled out – he _did_ bleed out, didn't he?" he puckered his lip, looking up "I suppose he did… How else could you kill him? Did you send for help immediately, my beautiful Harley, or did you wait for him to die first? And how easy was that?"

His taunting voice reverberated inside my brain, plucking the tormenting memories in a painful pull. I slapped him – faster than I could process the will to do so, and he was momentarily silent as his face turned. It returned to me with cold, annoyed eyes:

"Why are you so offended, _do tell_!"

My eyes started overflowing, my lips trembled.

"It can't be because you think I've made you _kill_ …" he walked closer, looking into my eyes "No, that would made no sense: you're far beyond that point by now, Harley. Far beyond the point you'd perform first aid on your dying tyrant… Or was it your victim? I'm sure a simple tourniquet would do…"

"…Please…" My hands were drawn to the sides of my head, wishing that could keep the images from moving so fast "…Stop!"

"You're not just angry at your patient, Harley. You're not just scared of what he did… You're feeling betrayal!"

The memory returned to me – opening the door, feeling myself violently gripped, violently thrown back…

"…but why? Have you questioned it yet?"

His feel brought him closer.

"Was it because I let someone else touch you – when it could have been me?"

Boldly, then, he lifted his cuffed hands – caressed my face where a drop rolled down, watching it with a mute, serious fascination.

"Was it because I weren't there, Harley?" His blue eyes looked down on me – a different light shone in them and held me there, speechless and slightly breathless with his face so close to mine. A girlish sobbing began to agitate my breast, some primitive instinct telling me it was okay to break down and cry in his presence once it seemed almost… benevolent.

The soft, sometimes cold, sometimes warm touch of his fingertips slid down my jaw, slowly felt the extension of the artery throbbing on my neck, then his palm framed my collarbone… His eyes looked back to mine for a quick second after each centimeter of flesh had been braved by his touch, as if he carefully modulated my reactions before advancing.

"It must have been really frustrating…" he whispered, and just as softly his hand slid down to my chest, lingering a little around my growing heart beats, then slightly brushing against the contours of my breasts.

My breath staggered as an electric current pulled up my nerves, parting from his touch. Noticing it, the Joker smiled again – his face didn't look the same without it. Having hooked me with that, he grabbed on his bound hand the fabric of my shirt, pulled me closer to him and landed a kiss upon my cold, quivering lips.

When they parted, I trembled. A warm, strange wetness covered my mouth. I touched it with caution, then looked at my fingers with a growing sensation of dread: bright stains of blood from his wounded jaw stamped me. The coppery taste filled my mouth, my heart beat frantically inside my ribcage – _blood_ was all I could feel then – my blood rushing, burning its way up to my face, to my extremities, to every inch his hand had touched… his blood on my hand; that man's blood on my kitchen floor… I lost control over breath and beat, and felt myself ready to scream!

"Alright smart guy, you're asking for it!" I barely heard the cop over the buzz in my ears as he walked in and landed another punch on Joker, throwing him down.

The guard held my shoulder next, checking out on me. Joker was on the floor, getting kicked on the stomach.

"Enough…" I murmured below my breath.

"Enough!" I screamed a second time "That's enough, stop!"

The violence ceased – the cop looked back at me with judgmental eyes, and the Joker smiled, pleased.

"Take him, or whatever!" I hysterically pronounced "Just stop this nonsense! And you, Joker… You got what you wanted!"

His eyes curiously peeked as I surveyed my purse, pulling out the selected folder.

"You're no longer my patient! I'm handing you over!" I nervously yanked off my glasses to face him with the angry resolution boiling out of me.

His smile came undone, and his eyes blankly looked at me.

"Here's your stupid file… and my notes, too, if they're so important to your twisted ego! Enjoy! And have a fun life!"

I threw them at him – the folder, the papers, the glasses. Sheets flew freely, soaring through the air as the Joker now stared into nothingness.

"So you're a tough one, huh?" The cop walked into view as I turned away. Joker's eyes didn't meet him, not even to receive his punch.


	6. Chapter 6

_Hello everyone!_  
 _I once again apologize for the huuuuge delay. Like I said previously, I clearly bit off more than I could chew and my imagination abandoned me in face of The Joker, so all I can say is thank you for reading and supporting this, and I *promise* I'll do something really worthwhile once the movie is out and I have a better idea of the ground i'm threading on - Jared Leto can't go to waste!_

 _I also happen to have an original story that I post every two weeks elsewhere - a dark, dangerous romance of sorts, too - if you wanna check it out, go to gloenbright. com (without the space) it would mean a lot to me! =)_

 _Thanks again for all the awesome reviews!_

* * *

The first month was a painfully agitated one.

I understood the Joker would never have left Arkham Asylum otherwise, so pressing charges against him for the assault he arranged – and admitted to – in my house was an easily decision to regret: As soon as the armored truck drove him away to face trial, I began to fear for my life – to _unbearably_ fear for it.

Luckily, nothing happened, and the sleepless nights had all been in vain – soon the Joker was back at the Asylum – or so I heard from the other inmates as they gossiped on the hallways or started conversations with the guards during the last few minutes before our sessions begun – I myself dared not inquire staff or patients about him, and I irrationally dreaded any circumstance that could force me to once more get in contact with him, to the point of remodeling completely my working routine. I now spent most of my hours inside my office. I had pulled the desk back so that, in distractedly looking forward to formulate a phrase in the air before writing it down, I wouldn't run the risk of looking out the large glass window and down onto the courtyard and see the peculiar combination of pale skin and green hair crossing. The hours that I didn't spend isolated in my hermit's retire, I was in a session – all of which had been rescheduled to a later hour, one far away enough from the meals to prevent unpleasant encounters on the hallways. My breaks differed from everyone else's, too. The way it was now, I barely saw any of my coworkers. It was strange to discover I actually appreciated that aspect: I had developed a particular liking to not having to talk. It wasn't a bad life, those few weeks. It wasn't a bad life at all. Knowing The Joker was back in the asylum made me avoid everything outside my office, but I could breathe normally again, not fearing every day as I turned on the TV or unfolded a newspaper I'd see some headlines about him having escaped.

For some reason… for some _very_ misleading reason, I thought Arkham's bars more efficient than a police station's. I thought being stored, locked away fixedly at a place where he knew, read and manipulated most was safer than the guarded interior of a moving armored truck. That the bribed, insecure asylum guards were smarter than a detective, a commissioner…

One thing, as a child, I hoped the intensive study of med school would answer was why we seem to predict danger. Why the lights flick differently, illuminate differently, when it's near. Why the shadows look so particularly dense, and the air feels so strangely heavy, filled with almost audible static…

…Why breathing a second before it hits you feels so prophetic…

In logical reason's defense, I _did_ see the shadow of his pale hand reaching out a fraction of a second before it covered my mouth.

And this time there was no doubt it was him!

"'Evening, Harley! Ready for our last session?!"

The Joker leaned down, breathing into my ears. He stood behind my chair, somehow hidden deep in the shadows of the dark office, where my desk lamp couldn't reach him.

"I have seen a lot of hope in you…" he started, catching my wrists on the air with one hand as I attempted to fight him "A lot of potential, really!" With little effort, he pushed my arms down, pressing them together against my lap, exerting sufficient pressure to keep me from standing. His other hand still firmly pressed my lips closed "…For a… what do you call it again? Oh yes, a functional, responsible citizen! I _do_ have some topics I'd like clear out before I discharge you though… But don't mind them, they're mere routine!"

"Hmmmm!" I moaned under his fingers.

"Oh, what's that? You don't wanna leave?" He leaned forward, looking at me with merciless, excited eyes. My breathing picked up as despair ebbed within my blood stream.

"Please!" I begged as his hand allowed me a second of relief – it shut my mouth tightly again.

"Oh no, you can't stay here, Harley dear! Your time is up! It's the natural progression of things, now…" he let go of my arms, tucking his hand inside his pants' pocket.

I struggled jumping back on the chair, holding the arm that held my mouth and desperately fighting to pull it down.

Joker pulled out a crumbled paper which he placed on the desk before me with some effort - needing, then, his two hands to separate me from him: he held both my arms with hurtful firmness and pulled them back on the chair – I opened my mouth to gather the air and scream, when his warm breath calmly invaded my ear:

"One squeak, my darling, and I'll have to wrap it up for today… You wouldn't want that, would you?!" His hand framed my jaw threatening, with its firm delicacy, to break my neck.

He could do it – my trembling, panicking, fearsome self warned with crippling despair _..._

"Now, what do we have here!" More tranquil, and again enthusiastic, the Joker stretched the paper on the desk, still holding on to my arm.

I looked down with fearful curiosity – I knew whatever was in that paper represented my sentence, from the importance he gave it.

"Day one…" The Joker read, and the cold fluid of dread filled my chest: they were my notes on him. "'The patient seems to be an egotistic maniac with delusions of grandeur. Likes to entertain the thought that he's _important_ , unique, different from his fellow inmates, which is probably the main motivation behind past conflicts with psychiatrists: A need to stand out, to be special in the authority's eye, much like the complex that strikes an only child when a younger sibling is born, to crave attention and bask in it, even when its nature is purely negative and renders the child unpleasant!' A little bit harsh, wouldn't you say, doc?" He turned to me, and I flinched, closing my eyes and looking away. "You're good on that one though, Harley: We both know our continued sessions have helped you relinquish that conformed, repetitive pattern of thinking people in your class like to display!"

I squirmed as the back of his finger stroked my cheek with affectionate pride. With a smile, the Joker moved on:

"Day two! Patient invests with renewed efforts in showing off power, implying even to have control over the guards. Possibly a way to compensate for a traumatic helplessness in infancy. It matches the behavior of abused children who had their power forcefully taken from them' Really, Harley?" He dropped the paper, facing me with frustration "The 'abused' card?!"

The chair shook with his rage, and again I flinched, my nerves extra sensitive, anticipating the pain of an inevitable blow…

"Day three…" his voice grew in tone and intensity, less patient, less playful… "The Joker, as the patient likes to be called…" he rolled his eyes "…might suffer from a subtle form of dissociative identity disorder as far as I'm concerned. After last week's session I have doubled the current medicine attached above, but the proposed combination continues to show no positive effects and the patient doesn't show signs of responding to therapy."

He puckered his lower lip out and moved his head from one side to the other, mumbling 'not bad' to himself. I stretched my neck, trying to look through the window, eagerly searching our surroundings. How long until help came? How much time would he have with me in there before someone noticed? If my mouth was free, I could try to stall him – however trembling and weak my voice might sound. Compulsive shivering began to shake my limbs and I felt myself losing it.

Noticing my distracted eyes, Joker pushed my chair forward, against the desk, drawing my anguished attention back to him. "Day four!" He hoarsely announced, walking around the desk, stopping before me as to block my view to anything else. He carried on, reading aloud: "The patient refuses to participate in the therapy properly speaking. Fight for control persists, hindering any chances of progress as the patient himself refuses to see a need for correction in his behavior…' And blablabla, etc and etc… "Changing subjects, concealed emotions, uncooperative…" he shook his hand on the air, then sighed, dropping the paper for a second to look at me "But I don't mean to bore you, darling: After that there is just a load more of 'meanie patient's frustrating insubordination' vesus 'poor doctor's failed attempts at making progress'… Forgive-me, Harley…"

He leaned closer, cocking his head to the side and looking deep into my eyes. I squinted them, irrationally afraid of what I would see there if I looked too long, and I heard Joker smile – his breath caressed my face:

"…I had no idea I was such a pain! Why, you must have _thought about me_ for day and night, for sure! Such a pressing, _oppressing_ matter! How to fix the joker! Your determination – it's commendable really, and I appreciate the love! But if I were cause for so much distress, I would have liked to know!" he laughed madly "But buckle up now, doc: I almost gave up on the reading at this point, but I'm glad I carried on, for after a few more days of whining, I finally got to my favorite: Day 10!"

I looked back, for he had stopped behind me, holding the paper up and moving his hands in the air like an actor in a play:

"The patient shows signs of improved social awareness, acceptance of one's state, remorseful thinking and recurring nightmares appealing to the cruel nature of his crimes. Medication is being accepted and showing positive changes in former agitation and anxiety. Patient claims to feel better overall – It is _imperative_ that the therapy continues."

When he stopped reading and his eyes spotted me, I felt the rawest form of fear freeze my spine. He approached, laying his hand on my shoulder – the touch brought me physical discomfort, and where his warm weight held me trembling ceased from sheer fear of moving.

"Now, I'm not saying anything you wrote before that should be taken any seriously, doc… but…" his face closed in on mine, his pupils shifting from my eyes to my lips, menacing me… "…that's a load of crap!" he whispered at last, his voice shaking with contained laugh.

"Please, Joker…" I cowardly whimpered.

"I'm a smart man, however!" he interrupted, standing straight again and walking around my office "So it's easy to assume your repetitive, pessimistic, whining notes reached a very predictable end you were just too naïve to anticipate, my young Harley: The guys upstairs weren't happy with it! What good is it to pay for therapy that doesn't work, huh? An obvious enough questioning, if I do say so myself. But then what a desperate, _unprofessional_ measure you took to guarantee your weekly sessions with the enigmatic, hopeless Joker: To blatantly _lie_ about a patient's response to your treatment! I'll forgive you, doc - I'll let it slide this one time – it was for a good cause!"

Walking around the office, he stopped by my side and pulled my chair to him, holding it by the arm and bowing down to look me in the face. Despair poured out of me in the form a whimpering sob I couldn't control.

His firm finger caressed my face – softly, and yet my overworked nerves transformed it in anticipation's pain..

"But what about all the rest? What should I do with you, huh, Harley? My psychiatrist failed to read me properly! I should know better than to trust such a shy young girl to the task…"

"Please…" again, cowardice begged. The softer his speech, the more I feared for what he was going to do to me.

"What are you going to do to make it up for all that wasted time, huh, buddy? Tell me, Harley…" His hands held me by the side of my face, forcing me to look at him – a thumb brushed against my teary cheeks. "C'mon…" he coerced, looking deeply into my eyes. "It's our last session, dear, and we're running out of time. Tell me something _I don't know_!"

I dropped my head and cried cowardly – cowardly as I never thought I could. Throughout my teenage years I was sure no form of menace could deprive me of my dignity… Even when adulthood started, I knew if I had to die I would die a proud death, even if one caused by Gotham's violent streets. But when I pictured those threats, did they ever assume as peculiar a form as Joker's? Were they ever expressed in the form of a velvety touch that made me mind think of rough sandpaper slowly peeling the layers of my skin? A calm, torturous death was what awaited me in him if I said the wrong thing – a pleased smile all I would behold in his face throughout the process. My chest beat convulsively. I couldn't keep myself from begging, couldn't keep my nerves from rocking my cold bones into crumbling….

"Joker, _please…_ I know _nothing…_ " I moved my head from one side to the other, gathering the courage to look into his eyes only to hope they would show mercy.

The scariest part is that they seemed to – his eyes turned meek as he petted my face, his speech dull and silent as if he lulled a child to sleep:

"Then you have yet a lot to learn, Harley my dear. A doctor is not yet a doctor when he's fresh out of university, I'm sure they have told you. Experience, my love – that is what you need. Quit your sobbing, you're not getting fired here…" Both his hands held the sides of my face, pulling my head up so I could meet the creepy light in his eyes again "I know just the place for you. I'll leave you to my boys, Harley – you'll be _their_ shrink then… Let's go!" He sentenced, letting go of me and standing straight again.

How torturous! How painful! How maddening! This time, it hurt with desperation when his touch _left_ me – I pushed forward, jumping on the chair and grabbing him by the wrist:

"No! Please! Please, don't do that!"

He looked at me from over his shoulder, examined the hand that held him with near disgust:

"It's all I can do if you're going to be of no use to me, darling! I am actually _disappointed_ on you. And here I thought you were making so much progress!"

"Please, Joker! I swear I'm not – I swear I didn't mean to, I…" I looked around, confused, searching for the right words to render my plea convincing.

"Let's go Harley – you are being hysterical, and not in the interesting way…" he teased further, silently, efficiently manipulating me.

"T-there is something! There is something else!" I gave in, finally understanding what it was he wanted.

"An honest record, you say? Something to prove you're not as mad as these reports made believe? I'll believe little else, mind you…" he playfully waved an index finger at me.

I held my forehead, crossed my arms over my chest, cast a quick glance over the window, rethinking – was no one really coming my way? If I showed the Joker my journal, I would certainly stall him… maybe even get him to forgive me…

…but what would all those truths occasion me then? I was sure I had been more than sincere in them… and that scared me! What had all my last thoughts consisted of again?

Anxiety inevitably drove me to look to the side, to the drawer under my desk, to the key waiting in the keyhole, removing from me the responsibility of telling him where to find it. In these past few days of recluse psychiatrist, the drawer's content had been a close friend to say the least…

"Ah! Of course!" The Joker picked up the cue "People have the strangest love for the past that drives them to document their deeds, specially in gloomy days – and your days _have_ been gloomy, haven't they?" He chuckled, turning the key and picking up the hard-covered book from inside "And the darker the deed, the more space they take up in these black brochures…" he sighed, contented "…and the more eager we are to write them down in sordid details! I could make a hobby out of going through these, my darling… But then again, you made a profession out of it!" Joker giggled, satisfied as he lifted in his hand the mentioned book.

I watched as he casually pulled the chair before me, sat, crossed his legs and supported his polished shoes on my desk, holding the notebook open between his two fingers. My own torture session began as his smile stretched sideways, hesitated, chuckled, changed throughout the reading. I took advantage of his distraction to eagerly search every structure of the asylum visible from my window, looking for a sign of life that could come and stop the Joker before he decided to kill me, or do worse. A distant guard marched near the gate – my office's lamp offered a dim, traitorous light: he would never see me in there, however long I stared.

When hope began to fade, when it progressively became clearer that the Joker would have as much time with me in there as he wanted before anything could interrupt us and the mind had almost conformed itself around this truth, a new object of torture was found in remembering what exactly I had written in that journal. There might have been a day I worked late… A day in which I pulled a bottle of wine from the cabinet under my desk, drank some and admitted to more than just how much Joker's sickness bothered me – more than just how much it seemed to influence me, to transform my thoughts and my tolerance to the people circling around…

…I might have admitted to how weird he made me feel.

I might have talked about those dreams, about the strangeness of the asylum and how pointless if all felt… when he wasn't inside. Remembering a few entries, like the one where I described in details his naked torso and his general appearance, made my otherwise cold blood go the inverse direction, burning hot in a near-convulsion nervous state… Reasonably, I should be happy – relieved. I knew the contents of the journal were nothing but flattering to the sociopath perusing it. His smile told me so – his angst had been replaced by deep, possibly aroused satisfaction, and I suppose that was better – I supposed my life could then be spared… but at what cost? Breathing picked out an erroneous pace again as I began to regret my decision.

"Harley, dear…" he sighed at last – a shaken, strangled sigh that held in some sort of strong emotion. It didn't look negative. Not for him, that is. "…what a delightful mind you have there!" He closed the book, returning it to the desk and picking himself up "And what was the point of keeping it all from me?" he paced around me, stopping behind my chair. I turned my neck, deadly anxious to see him and anticipate what he was planning "Just to make me mad?! Was that a game, too? An experiment, maybe?" he chuckled "Did you want to see what I looked like when I was pissed?"

His hand brushed softly against the side of my neck – I cringed. His fingers held my shoulder fast, he leveled his head with mine, looking me in the eyes and smiling his maniac smile:

"Unfortunately, at the verge of being let go, the patient has fallen into relapse, developing a strange infatuation for yours truly! Treatment must be continued outside the facility… And…" he smiled, then laughed at his own act "And we'll have so much to talk about, too!"

The Joker held my arms together in a tight embrace, pulling me up from the chair.

"Come on, Harley!"

My heart grew dark, desolate: I resisted, investing all my weight on gravity and pleading it would keep me down:

"No, please… Joker!"

"Come on now, don't be a willful one… You wouldn't want to be sedated, would you?" he played, pulling on me.

"No, let me go! Please Joker, _please…_ We can talk here!"

"You silly thing! Like I would give up on you when you're _so_ close to being cured of that mortal disease consuming your brain? No – trust doctor Joker, Harley: he knows what is best for you."

And with heavy feet he dragged me from behind my desk and on to the door.

"W-where are you taking me?!" My trembling voice inquired, dreading the answer.

"Oh, out, dear – can't impress a lady in such a dull place, can you?!" he casually answered without looking back. "Girls like… bright colors and chocolate!"

My legs resumed their panicked, convulsive shaking under the perspective of being snatched away with him.

"NO!"

"Shhh - quiet now!" he ordered, making a sudden move in which he was behind me, holding my hair in a firm grip that would hurt if I tried to yank away "If the guards hear us, they'll spoil all the fun… Or I'll have to kill them…"

Promptly immobilizing me, he pushed me forward, hiding the weird, characteristic colors of his hair and skin behind me and under the shadows of the dark corridors we crossed.

Whenenever I tried to tilt my head to the sides to look for any guards, without a word and somewhat softly, he'd tighten his grip, keeping me in place.

Crossing the Arkham building's unnaturally empty corridors was easy enough this way, and though I purposely slowed my pace offering as much resistance as I could, though I occasionally broke down and fell to the floor to cry in desperation, we eventually reached the exit. It was then that the Joker stopped moving so abruptly to carefully step sideways into view in the guard's security cabin. For my dismay, a fat specimen of the profession slept soundly. The Joker left me on the door and carefully stepped inside the small square structure. I looked around myself searching for a place to get help; finding no promising spot in specific, I ran ahead on a random direction with my noisy heels.

The Joker was behind me in no time, however – his long fingers pressed down on my collarbone and a cold, hard shaft pressed to my head. The hope of escaping hurt more than despair, I there realized: He had stolen the sleeping guard's gun, and smiled triumphantly as if attempting to escape him had been but an amusing game:

"Not that way, darling! Now show me to your car, if you will!"

"I… I don't have a car!"

"In that case…" His arm surrounded my waist, automatically pulling me closer against his torso – quick fingers pulled up my cellphone from my lab coat, holding it up to my face "Call us a cab! Make it quick, too!"

Before we had reached Arkham's unguarded gates, the taxi had already arrived at the curb of the dark, desert road that led out of the asylum district. As my heels echoed into the foggy night while Joker dragged me to the taxi, I couldn't help but lift my eyes to that vast, uninterrupted sky – to the large moon sailing it and reflecting down on the asphalt. I know I had found hope to be more painful once broken, but I couldn't help my faulty heart from nurturing it. Was I going crazy, too? I could only consider it crazy to search the sky in hope for… but never mind!

"Step lively, darling!" Joker pulled me faster, then pushed me into the warm taxi. "We're gonna be late for our date night!"


	7. Chapter 7

Ok, so someone threatened to tie me to a chair and force me to finish this with a knife pointed at my face... Joke's on you, psychotic reader: Can't write with my hands tied!  
It worked though.

I'll do my best to finish the story this time around - I still haven't had the chance to watch the movie, might see it in two days though, and hope it will give me some light on where to go - or not! I just might stick to my blurry ideas and carry on from there, if you don't mind. Here's to hoping I haven't lost my touch.  
This isn't really a chapter, just what I had before I stopped, so don't be dissapointed with the lenght, just putting it out there to let you guys know i'll get back to it. I promise to bring a bigger one next week or so.  
Thank you all for the amazing reviews =) ...and the amazing threats. I guess.

Once pushed inside the cab, I jumped forward to the space between the driver and passenger's seat and slipped in a choked 'Help!". Joker held me by the wrist then, assuming the seat by my side. He pushed me to the side, pressing me against the car and taking the front to address the driver:

"Yes, help us - we have two tickets to the theater due in 15 minutes, and my darling here is mighty eager to see it!"

The driver was a lazy, suspicious yet uninterested kind. His mildly annoyed expression even might have showed he didn't trust the unusual couple that just entered his car in front of a mental institution - a doctor in a lab coat with her bum coming undone, falling in blonde ringlets over the thick rimmed glasses, the eyes probably wide with hysteria; an exceptionally pale individual with green hair and unusual makeup -, but even then, he didn't care enough to interfere - a third person's drama meant nothing to that kind, and I could feel Joker smile triumphantly as the shadow of bitter resentment and misplaced hatred substituted the pleading light on my eyes. Still he lingered there, looking idiotically back at us.

Joker squeezed closer to me and shoved his hand inside my lab coat, rummaging for something. I struggled, thinking he was going to hurt me.

"Here it is, for your trouble!" he took out a few dollar bills and offered them in a friendly way.

Satisfied but not impressed, the driver looked back ahead, the cab began to move.

"No need to look so offended, Harley dear - I'll pay you back, I promise!" Joker teased, pulling back his hair and adjusting it behind his head using the rearview mirror in front of him.

Not that he had ever looked troubled, but now he truly looked relaxed, leaning back on the seat and placing the handgun behind his belt, his silky shirt bending around it showing off a splinter of his tight abdomen. Upon noticing my eyes tracing the gun's position, he held my hand inside his against the car seat, and again I felt the liquid substance around my heart freeze with hopelessness.

After a few minutes of the car cruising the lonely road into the city, the driver began to glance at us from the rearview mirror a little too often. The silence must have seemed too unnatural to him, at last. The suspicion made his eyebrows tense with inconvenience. Perhaps if I signaled something to him, he would relent – do something! I began to eagerly move my pupils towards The Joker.

But my malicious companion was proving himself too sharp to be so easily exposed. "Hey…" He said, calling me. His hand was still on top of mine, creating a hot clutch. I looked at him and his eyes surveyed my expression with what looked like hesitation, then his hand covered my face and, the next minute, his lips were against mine.

Unlike the first time, _this_ time they moved: Joker's red lips pressed down upon my own. Soon, his mouth had encircled mine – his tongue softly stole inside, massaging, exploring my mouth…And I couldn't stop him. Not because he had a gun, not because I knew he was dangerous and knew not my fate from there on… But because the perfume of his skin pressed against my face inebriated me, and the taste of his mouth was addicting, toxic as it poured pure poison on my frayed sensations. Made uncomfortable, the taxi driver gave up on his suspicion and looked away from us, shaking his head in abhorrent disapproval. Joker's eyes traced his reaction, then his mouth let go of me, easily disconnecting. I lingered in the sensation – confused, scared. Joker cleaned his lips against his sleeve, lightly smearing his makeup across them.

The car eventually, slowly pulled to a stop. My heart, which had gotten accustomed to the despair and ceased to respond to adrenaline, remembered to do so again. The brakes whistled through the wet pavement of filthy sewers waters, steam curled up around the thick street lampposts, hiding the entrance to a deserted alleyway, hidden in the shadows of tall, decaying buildings. The Joker wrapped his hand around my wrist fast and pulled me out of the car before I could finish contemplating my grim fate. Once outside, he began to pull the gun from his waist.

My eyes grew wide as the metal shone under the yellow street light. Strangely enough, I felt my mouth water with the thrill of revenge… Good reason took hold of me soon after, shaking me into deeper panic:

"No! Joker! What are you doing?! Please don't…!" Unintentionally I held his hand in both of mine, hoping to keep the gun in place. His clear eyes tracked me, observing with something unreadable between offense and amusement. A smile followed, clearing it up:

"My, I thought ladies didn't like a mess! Because it's our special night, Harley, so I will do as you wish…" he relented, flashing me a smile that exposed his teeth.

It was silly and naïve of me to feel relief, specially under such a circumstance. The Joker let go of me and walked around to the driver's window, leaving me at the mouth of the dark alleyway without even casting a glimpse back – did he know I wouldn't try to run away in such a desolate, scary place? I shrunk inside my coat, looking around in an attempt to gather the courage to prove him wrong.

"Thank you kindly!" I heard him use of a friendly tone to send the driver off, followed by a short, loud horn that called my attention back to the car: it repeated itself as the Joker smashed the driver's head repeatedly against the console, his hand holding tightly, unnaturally to the sides of the steering wheel almost as if holding on to it would keep his brain from spilling. Blood and flesh spread like liquid over the windshield and down the man's clothes, tainting his jacket as the blows continued, rhythmically. He didn't have the time to scream – not even a moan came out of his mouth, nothing but the muffled sound of his head adhering to the car interior's structures. His tight fingers eventually softened around the wheel – it was, somehow, the most disturbing and shocking part of it all for me. His head drooped as the Joker let go of it, a deformed mass of a person. Casually, the Joker slipped his finger inside the Jacket's pocket, pulling out a bloodied fold of dollar bills. These he offered to me most gentlemanly under the streetlight where I waited – his fingers dripping red. I screamed hysterically; Joker's arm snatched me by the waist, forcing me into the dark alley.


	8. Chapter 8

Steam crept up from the sewers, dimming my view to the sky framed by enclosed buildings. I didn't know where we were, but the disposition of the apartments, the smells of suburban pollution in the air and the tightness of those numerous alleyways I crossed with Joker's fingers carving into the soft flesh of my arms - sometimes gently, sometimes jealously as if he knew what kind of thoughts I considered -, all made me think of home. Home... if ever my abode held such meaning, it hadn't done so anymore for a long time now. How curious, that the chill up my spine told me I'd feel safer in Arkham surrounded by all those lunatics than out in my own house - out in the open, as it felt - and vulnerable to the fancies of the psychopath at my side. All the while he dragged me to God knows where, I whimpered softly.

My heart skipped a beat; in line with the distant, growing sound of a repetitive, dull rhythm of thumps filling the night air. I knew for a fact that we approached a club house, I had heard the idiotic noise many times on my way back from the asylum. The otherwise despised place, then, took my breath away with a much expected glimpse of hope.

But even hope itself had more than abandoned me, spread cowardly away by the firm grip Joker's fingers held over my resisting self. It was hard to believe he would willingly take me near so crowded a place, and yet he did. Hard to believe, then, that he trusted my imposed submission so much: the glowing, alternating and psychedelic lights came into view through the alleyways, penetrating the blurred seams of my panic and making me numb with a sudden shot of adrenaline. My chance lay there, a few struggles away... and struggle was precisely what I did as soon as we passed in front of the small, noisy place – a small crowd danced and chatted on the outside of the narrow entrance door – I begun to thrash and moan, fighting for my freedom from the peculiar-looking clown. The psychopath looked oddly surprised, then exasperated at my sudden retaliation - the unexpectedness of it served as my biggest advantage. When all my strength proved little effective against Joker's, however, I had to employ my voice: Adrenaline rendering me fearless of the gun he concealed behind his belt, I screamed for help, shrieking so loud I thought my vocal cords might burst, all so I could be heard through the infuriating music.

I did get heard, I suppose. In the struggle I fell to the ground, with Joker's hand still firmly gripping at my side. After the struggle, I thought I saw him raise his hand to strike me, but stopped, his eyes fixed on the small crowd that now stared. I fell on my back over the wet pavement and, trembling with the commotion, put all my strength into a kick I couldn't afford to miss – it hit Joker in his stomach, forcing him to bend over the affect area and recklessly let go of me. I slipped and slithered, and finally managed to get myself up on my skittish feet, feeling the whole of my heart throbbing tightly inside my throat, its deafening sound pounding in my ears. I felt the brush of Joker's hand touching me frantically more than once, but somehow I escaped their temporary clumsiness and, with little confidence in my running abilities, penetrated the crowd. The illusion of hearing him crack a maniacal laugh followed me in.

My heels resounded against the metal stairs, echoing on the hard walls as I climbed into the dark club. 'NOT FAST ENOUGH, NOT FAST ENOUGH' was all I could hysterically think, hearing the loudness of my rhythm casting me into despair and anticipating the pain of getting captured again. I couldn't waste this chance – I would never get one like it!

The stairs opened briefly into a dark, crowded enclosure where blue rays of light flashed sickly, and continued to a third unknown floor, leaving me with the torment of choice. I chose to fall into the agitated, jumping crowd, pushing my way through them to as deep as I could manage, away from the stairs and from the door and away from Joker's easy reach. The loud, pounding music drowned away any sound I could use to measure his approach, and the darkness blinded me to see if he had bothered to come after me... but at least both elements served me just as well. I kept pushing through the people, agitated and panicked, until a few minutes had passed to retrieve some of my reason. Then, I began to plead for help.

"Sir, please!" I begged in the dark. "Ma'am, you gotta help me!" I besought, touching strangers, approaching my lips to their ears, speaking loudly, fearfully of who might hear it... but, like in a nightmare, no one listened! Some moved spasmodically, their faces dropped, their eyes closed, like dumb or numb zombies destitute of intellect. Those I had little qualms, at that level of despair, about pushing rudely out of my way and ignoring it as they tripped over their own stupidity, falling upon someone else and directing me a curse. No time to pay them any mind – moving on, I called upon a big bulky man of excessively toned muscles, one I never would have approached in different circumstances. The scorn I secretly felt for the vanity those type of people nurtured died in face of the hope of protection the big build suggested. When the man refused to listen, I pulled him by the arm – in response, his eyes met mine, as if he hadn't even noticed me until then... and they frowned, surveying my frame with what looked like disgust, before looking away.

"T-there's a man...!" I began to sob, chocked by my lack of success, my voice trembling and failing as pride bled away with despair "You have to help me, there's a man after me..."

There's a man... I repeated incredulously as I noticed their apathy. No one cared! I was but a nuisance, an unwanted interruption to their numb, robotic dancing, an unsightly apparition... Of course! – I touched myself – my hair was a mess of an undone bum, my glasses crooked, my makeup certainly smudged across my face from those shameful tears I couldn't help but continuously cry, my lab coat soiled with those filthy streets... I probably looked insane! A mere drug addict hoping to share what they each had taken that night, a beggar for their narcotic bliss. How rageful I felt then! I, doctor Harley Quinzel, looked down on by those brainless monkeys... But rage must wait until a more appropriate time to manifest, survival was my current aim! I slid further into the aloof crowd, the spasmodic song and lights seeming to distort reality into further panic, and I reached for the first cellphone I could see hanging from the back pocket of someone's pants. I began to dial emergency, eager and hotly ignoring whatever it was the owner aggressively shouted at me. When he tried to retrieve it, his words failing to reach my ear one way or the other, I began to escape. When he reached me, I tried to explain – I desperately talked, desperately begged, all to naught. The rude, ignorant beast threatened me with violence, yanking the device from my hands and leaving me sobbing, begging for help.

"Oh I'll help you, dear!" Joker's delicate voice fell upon my ears – I made it out easily throughout the music – and his arms embraced me, pulling an unresisting, surrendering and weeping self to him.

I had gotten so close, only to fail... my heart could hardly overreact anymore. Despondency hit like a rock under Joker's condescending smile: he knew it would be so. He knew I'd hope for, but find no help in there – when this light struck, alighting me, and my face changed with the realization, he saw it, too, and began to laugh.

* * *

The music remained the same – a repetitive, sickly beat. So did the lights: they glowed in perfectly timed intervals, only my psychotic capturer decided they would look better when cast through a purple hue, and proceeded to the bloodied panel under the deceased technician to adjust it according to his taste, all the while being careful not to let go of me again. Up there, the music wasn't so loud, the smothering heat of the crowd couldn't reach me, but I could see them down there, moving drunkenly and happily in their folly. How bitterly I watched it when they started to laugh – part of me wanted to look away, to escape the violence, the murder...but other part envied the pleasure they found, the gas that made their unknown deaths suddenly so hilarious. I averted my eyes, seeking unconscious shelter in Joker's perfumed, cold and hard chest. The awareness that I sought solace in my torturer's bosom made me shiver with aversion, but it didn't last long: Joker made a point of moving my face back to the window, holding it there so I could see as people danced and shrieked into hysterical laughing.

"Watch it closely, Harley..." he suggested with the composed seriousness of a health professional making a prescription "The collective ecstasy... the ultimate bliss! Think of them like matchsticks, dear: they're burning brightly now!"

His gas crept slowly from the ground and into the air, like steam, and people laughed and danced obliviously to it. The life they would live, if spared – my mind had the freedom to muse – would not look so different from the scene I forcedly watched now, my face framed by Joker's cold hands: I watched quick five minutes of it, a summary of their unintellectual existences, seeking and enjoying pleasures that ultimately amounted to nothing, selfishly numbing their nerves into oblivion of all things responsibility, leading an unproductive, unyielding presence... surviving, merely! If I thought hard about it, I couldn't pity them... They were like cows, the poor things. And for all the help they denied me... why, I could almost feel a rancorous, teary sense of revenge as I watched their bodies dropping to the ground, one above the other, gone suddenly limp after all their laughter. It looked so unnatural and perfectly timed, it was like watching a comedy skit, one I could almost laugh upon. How perverse the realization my mind suggested me then, that the difference between the joker and I at that moment was that he had the courage to act upon his impulses. We were no different deep down, I had once heard a colleague say in college, one I promptly frowned upon: animals, all of us, with our basic instincts all very well preserved, requiring only a poke on the right side to startle into aggression. Those people... I hated them! Joker made sure I would! A psychotic, sharp light shone in his hazel eyes – that light of perverse pleasure held them wide open as he watched, without a wink, his own private massacre unfold. I had seen those eyes times before – when he laughed at my trauma after my house got invaded was one, and another when he egged loudly at the cafeteria as one inmate stabbed another with a make-shift knife from his bed springs... they had always scared me, the unpredictable, disturbing bursts. But now I thought I could see a pattern, a reason, however doubtful, in them... Could it be that... - I frowned, polishing the thought - ...was that the light in the eyes of a man that knew we were nothing but animals? Could it be but the bliss, the irony of possessing such a knowledge and being on higher ground for it? On the front row of life, perhaps? Joker smiled fascinatedly now, his lids narrowing around the fixed pupils, his lips trembling, stretching with impulses of reactions. He looked aroused, I thought, and felt a similar pull overwhelm my insides now that we didn't look so different after all... Now that I had learned I was no superior to him, in my sound state of mind. His eyes traced me, snake-like, and watched my scared, confused glare for a second, before his lips confidently possessed mine. He pulled me under himself over the desk, his entire body irradiating warmth onto me, every trail of his exploring hand creeping up with submissive, unresisting and ultimately thrilling fear. I yielded to his aggressive kiss, allowed myself to discover how overwhelming it felt upon my inexperienced nerves, for I was sure I would in time wake up – certainly, this was one of those disturbing dreams my nights began to conjure after the Joker was assigned to me. His reproachable touch, and the crude pleasure it stirred in me, felt exactly the same as in them.

I awoke from those caresses little able to determine how really intimate they were – how many of those sore parts of my straggling body had actually been touched, how many imagined it with placebo richness. The Joker laughed maniacally as he dragged me down the stairs – sirens had begun to wail in the far distance, interrupting the pull we suddenly had upon each other.

My vision was still foggy, my judgment severely impaired by the unusual progression of that day – its nature still hardly believable at all. The remnants of Joker's gas didn't help my case as we crossed down – one collateral inhale and I felt it sting into my brain like ticklish, tiny needles. A dizzy spell interrupted my forced march; my hands ran with urgency to my temples. The short delay that ensued until Joker would force me onwards again allowed me to send a stray gaze towards the mass of overlapped people on the floor. It still looked like a joke... they still looked very much alive – or at least half so – with the wide grin on their faces and their eyes teary with laughter. One false step and I stumbled upon one of them – a part of the pile came undone, a hand fell limp, dead – confirmedly cold – upon my foot. The cells in there didn't combust with life anymore, they no longer danced frantically like there was no tomorrow... for in truth there was not. Not for them. Nonetheless they all looked pretty pleased about it, and I'd certainly hear no one there complain that their hearts bursted with hilarious glee. A nice way to go, I thought myself, envying their stretched faces, permanently stuck like that until nature would wash the flesh away. A much better death than the one that awaited me in Joker's hands, for sure, so that I needed not pity them, nor they resent me. My selfish, loathing disrespect towards the massacre sent me back to Mr. Muller's lecture, so many years ago. He spoke of humans – the savage, beastly race, caged inside the refinements of society that do nothing but sharpen their inner barbarity; oftentimes channeled through tiny, socially acceptable outlets such as malicious snickering, office gossip and foul play at games. A gentleman can enjoy a laugh while kicking his innocent dog and, if popular enough, still be respected as a sane - eccentric at best - individual... but heaven forbid I, or anyone, ever openly laugh at the suffering of others, especially when purposely inflicted... No, those blatant, honest behaviors are reserved only for the crazy men to enjoy – the civilized must pretend it was but an accident; put on a sad face and weep the death of his mortal enemy and let no one see his enjoyment... Like me, right now, they must pretend the shock of death greatly overlapped the triumph of vengeance, of being proven right where all cruelly refused to believe, or failed to care, for it didn't occur to them it might be their problem too. I kicked that hand aside and felt the rage rise up like a tide from my heart, burning my tightened throat. The entire insight struck me as illogically comical then, pulling a short, loud laugh out of me. The sound bordered on unrecognizable as it passed my sore, swollen cords from screaming with those deadbeats - high-pitched and crazy with Joker's gas.

"Harley, dear, you are starting to come through..." Joker appraised, smiling arrogantly at the discovery and pulling me down with him just when he judged his lethal gas might accidentally give an easy, painless end to me, robbing him of his fun.


End file.
